The Long Way Up the West Coast

There's a version of the R27 that only exists early on a Saturday. The road is empty, the fynbos is wet and somebody in the back has already asked how far it is to Paternoster.

We weren't in a hurry. That was the point. A flask of coffee, a board on the roof and a car that made a new noise every hundred kilometres.

By lunch we'd stopped at three padstals and bought nothing we needed. By sunset we'd found the kind of beach you don't tell people about.