I reckon Dante got it all wrong when he wrote his 'Divine Comedy'. He left out a level of Hell – Somerset West. Or, more specifically, the N2 through Somerset West on a Friday afternoon. What, oh what, were they thinking when they decided to put a freeway through the middle of a retirement suburb? Throw in some robots, road works and road-trippers and it was almost enough to make me turn around and go home.

Almost enough, but not quite. Not when there's the prospect of a long weekend lounging our way through the Garden Route on offer. With Somerset West mercifully disappearing into the rearview mirror the N2 stretched out ahead of us.

Bands of Harley bikers thundered past on their way to the Buffalo Rally in Mossel Bay while family-wagons — packed to the gills with bikes and forlorn family dogs — laboured up the hills. Through the dry wheat fields, a quick stop at Riviersonderend for the best droë wors in the Cape, another at the Blue Crane farm stall near Heidelberg for bread and chicken pies, and eventually I saw a light in the east. Ah yes, the flickering flame of MossGas. A quick zip along the broad sweep of N2 towards George and a slip road off to the coast; Herolds Bay, we have arrived.

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