Promising ourselves we’d come back to Cape Town to go up Table Mountain, and to go to find our old house, we settled into a lovely auberge – very French/Cape Dutch style, in a stunning, trendy coastal town called Hermanus where the mountains meet the sea, and where whales and dolphins play in the azure waters of the bay. Also home to one of Peter’s long lost journalist colleagues from way back.

We met, they talked, and talked and talked. Forty-six years had elapsed since they last saw each other and it all seemed like yesterday. Over the week we were there many stories were recounted and revisited, and we got a first-hand insight into how the ‘New South Africa’ was working, and shared a few fabulous meals and more than a few glasses of excellent Cape wine.

Now, in that region of the Cape, you can’t drive more than a few Ks without coming across yet another vineyard, cellar door, or restaurant, so we weren’t short of venues for lunch. And so it was that we travelled to Franschhoek over spectacular mountain passes to meet ex-Johannesburg friends and neighbours whose children used to play with ours over forty years ago. Time takes its toll on many things, but old friendships remain timeless and lasting pleasures of the heart.

It so happens that Mr Branson has just acquired another large piece of South Africa, in the form of a vineyard in Franschhoek and we just had to go and take a peek before journeying on to yet another lunch with our ex-Noosa friends at a vineyard called Clos Malverne – planted by a family from the Malvern Hills in England, and the name Francophiled to fit the general terminology in these parts for wineries, which have sprung up like mushrooms since we lived here. This was probably our best lunch to date – but then you don’t really wish to know that, do you?

The weather so far had been fabulous – no rain at all since leaving home. However, high winds were our enemy now, and, sadly, we never got back to the City for the ride up Table Mountain, nor did we ever get back to our dear little cottage in Rondebosch – our very last home in South Africa. But we had a really marvellous time in Hermanus and surrounds, not least of all because for our last few days there, Bollywood came to town!

We sat and watched as actors, dancers, thousands of hangers-on crew and cameramen rehearsed over and over again on romantic  rocks with waves breaking in the background, and in the town square next to which we had our al fresco breakfast every day, to Indian sitar music and piped voice-overs for the leading lady and her man. I’ll never watch another ‘Best Exotic…’ again without remembering that spectacle!

Saying goodbyes, we hit the road to travel to Mossel Bay – all so far so good – no smashed windscreens, break-ins or moments of suspicion. Just happy friendly people willing to help in any way they can. Let’s hope it continues that way as we make our way along this amazing coastline of mountain peaks and passes, to the Wilderness Coast, and beyond the Cape.