The allure of the open road

Supposedly, it was the Chinese philosopher Confucius who said:

“Roads were made for journeys, not destinations.” I say supposedly because the great thinker lived 2 500 years ago when, even at the height of Chinese civilisation, there couldn’t have been that many roads.

That sums up, for me, the allure of a road trip – when the process of getting there is as attractive as the last stop itself. Every time we hit the road down to Knysna, which we have done many times in the past 15 years or so, that excitement has been there.

Starting out, it is intimidating to think that the 1 200km-odd can be tackled in one day and it can be deflating to see signs along the N1 South which indicate “Port Elizabeth 900km” or “Cape Town 1 000km”. But that’s part of the challenge and, so far, I have done the Joburg to Knysna route in one day (up or down) 13 times. In all of those journeys, I have only enlisted the help of a co-driver twice, and for less than two hours for each stint.

Somehow, the excitement of the journey helps me to push through the weariness… This last trip, though, the excitement was muted by the fact it wasn’t a holiday trip: we were going down for a funeral.

A decision to drive was arrived at when we looked at booking flights online. Two return tickets to George (the closest airport to Knysna) would have been an eyewatering R8 945 on Safair and just under R7 000 on Mango. Driving there and back cost just on R3 000, including toll charges. And, given that the Safair flight would have left mid-morning, we arrived in Knysna less than three hours later than if we had flown. That feeling of “beating the system” went a long way to restoring
the sense of accomplishment I feel in completing such a mammoth trip.

There were moments when the beauty of this wonderful country took my breath away – as when the rolling clouds enveloped the Outeniqua pass and when we could see the Karoo laid out below us from the top of the Lootsberg Pass just outside Graaff Reinet. And, on the road between George and Uniondale, with squally rain all about, a rainbow chased us for more than a kilometre, like it was just outside the passenger window.

While it was an opportunity to enjoy the road without thinking too much of the destination a long way ahead, the journey (especially the return one) gave me an opportunity to see, once again,

South Africans throwing what little common sense they originally possessed on to the side of the road. Take the simple phenomenon of speed. Every time I do these trips, The allure of the open road Process of getting there as attractive as last stop I get passed two or three times by the same person. They’ll come flying past at 150km/h, then again about 350km later and possibly once more 300km after that.

In some cases, I reckon they reach the end only minutes before I do. How is that? I travel at the speed limit – which means my fuel consumption is much better and I have to stop at least once less to fill up – and I keep stops to a minimum. We seldom spend more than 15 minutes stationary. That enabled us to cover the return trip at an average (including stops) speed of 94km/h, and total time of 12 hours and 50 minutes.

That time would have been shorter were it not for the endless streams of trucks which clog the N1 south of Bloemfontein, where passing lanes are not as frequent as they are else where on the single-lane highway. Thankfully, traffic was much lighter than it is in a normal December, when the brain dead average South African motorist combines stupidity with impatience in an often lethal cocktail.

Our planned annual holiday to Knysna – planned some months before the bereavement – begins in January. Hopefully, by then the road won’t be as hectic as cashstrapped holidaymakers cut short their seaside sojourns. But also, we’re not in a hurry so we’re cutting the long trip in two and stopping over in Colesberg on the way there and back.

And a nice little braai as the sun sinks over the Karoo’s flat-top hills in the distance will prove Confucius to have been spot on.

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