𝗔 𝗬𝗲𝗮𝗿 𝗶𝗻 𝗠𝗼𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 – 𝟯𝟲𝟱 𝗗𝗮𝘆𝘀 𝗶𝗻 𝗦𝗼𝘂𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗿𝗻 𝗔𝗳𝗿𝗶𝗰𝗮.

Last week I shared the first excerpt from my new 12‑volume project, 𝗔 𝗬𝗲𝗮𝗿 𝗶𝗻 𝗠𝗼𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 – 𝟯𝟲𝟱 𝗗𝗮𝘆𝘀 𝗶𝗻 𝗦𝗼𝘂𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗿𝗻 𝗔𝗳𝗿𝗶𝗰𝗮. 

This week’s piece from 𝗦𝗲𝗽𝘁𝗲𝗺𝗯𝗲𝗿 (𝗩𝗼𝗹𝘂𝗺𝗲 𝟵) follows the same journey a little later in the month—this time from the air, flying low along South Africa’s West Coast from the Cederberg back to Cape Town:

𝗟𝗼𝘄 𝗢𝘃𝗲𝗿 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗪𝗼𝗿𝗹𝗱 – 𝗔 𝗪𝗲𝘀𝘁 𝗖𝗼𝗮𝘀𝘁 𝗙𝗹𝗶𝗴𝗵𝘁 𝗛𝗼𝗺𝗲

16 September (excerpt) 

“Low over this coastline I realised I wasn’t just flying home; I was tracing, in one long, gentle line, the places that taught me who I am.”

I’ve always loved flying. Not just the convenience of it—the getting from A to B—but the way it redraws your map. Today is one of those days when the sky becomes the last chapter.

We ride out to the private airstrip in a game viewing Land Rover, the Cederberg morning already sharpening the edges of the rock around us. The strip itself is a simple scar of dirt and tar laid into a valley of stone. At the far end, a King Air 200 waits, engines already humming, props turning lazily as the pilot runs through his pre‑flight checks.

It has been a few big days—whales, wildflowers and plains wildlife—and this flight is not the fastest way home. It is the right way home. 

Take‑off is short and decisive. Suddenly the stone that held us for days is sliding away underneath in folds and slabs. From above, the Cederberg is a geology lesson written in capitals: ridges like sleeping dragons, gorges cut deep into sandstone, patchworks of rooibos fields stitched into reluctant soil.

We drop low over Clanwilliam Dam, where two tiny boats carve white wakes across water so flat it might be glass. I tell them about early mornings here as a student—bare feet on a ski, this same water holding the first shapes of adulthood.

Farther on, the coast appears: Elands Bay’s famous left‑hand break; Baboon Point watching over millennia of rock art and waves; St Helena Bay, where da Gama stepped ashore in 1497; Paternoster’s curve of beach and the ghost of my father’s crayfish factory; the white tower of Cape Columbine, where my parents picnicked on bare rock when there was almost nothing else here.

From there we slip over Langebaan Lagoon—Kraalbaai, Seeberg, Churchhaven—places we walked two days earlier, now laid out in one glance: turquoise water, white sand, fynbos, the long line of Sixteen Mile Beach holding back the Atlantic.

Low over the world, you realise that the real luxury was never the aircraft or the itinerary. It was the chance to trace, in one calm morning, the lines that made you who you are—and to share them, for a brief, precise while, with people who trusted you enough to come along.

You can read the full chapter here:

👉 https://lnkd.in/dwJ2zVD4

If this kind of journey speaks to you, you’re very welcome to travel along with me, one chapter at a time.