Fatal mistakes in route-planning

I hate to be a party-pooper when visitors show keenness to experience the best Cape Town has on offer but sometimes it is better to quash their expectations with a timely admonition than have reality crush them on the day.

Say, for example, that you’re staying in Stellenbosch and want to take a quick trip to see the penguins at Boulders Beach before heading to Knysna.

It’s less than 70km from Stellies to Simon’s Town and then 500km to the heart of the Garden Route; a bit of a slog behind the wheel but do-able in a day given that most of the journey is along the N2 freeway, right? I often use the website DistanceCalculator (www.distance calculator.co.za) when planning road trips because I find it remark ably precise in determining how far apart are points A and B.

Note I do not say how long the journey will be as this must take into account the time taken to traverse those kilometres.

DistanceCalculator says it will take less than an hour (“in current traffic”) to get from Stellenbosch to Boulders and a further 5:45:41 from there to Knysna – say nine hours from start to finish if you allocate two hours for penguin watching and refreshments.

Pictures: Jim Freeman

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The reality of Cape Town’s traffic

Depart the City of Oaks just after breakfast and you should be in Knysna before dark… You’d be lucky to make it by midnight. The phrase “in current traffic” is the lie that torpedoes the website’s distance-calculation accuracy.

Take it from a local: you’re going to spend so much time in your vehicle getting to and from Boulders from just about anywhere in the greater Cape Town that you’d be better off making a day of it.

Late last year, weeks before the holiday season began, it took me almost two hours on a motorcycle to ride 56km from Stellenbosch to the Silvermine Nature Reserve.

I did not thumb my nose (much) at speed limits but did all those things that motorcycles do so well like lane-filtering and over taking where cars can’t.

It took a further two hours to get from Silvermine to the V&A Waterfront, less than 35km, over Constantia Nek because the road from Bakoven to Sea Point was so congested that not even a politi cian could find a hole through which to squirm.

Two of the busiest roads in South Africa during peak season are Victoria Road, Camps Bay/ Clifton, and Main Road from Muizenberg to Fish Hoek.

They are single-lane in both directions; drive them once at this time of the year and you’ll never want to drive them again.

Add clueless foreigners – any one from further afield than Paarl – to the mix and you have a Gordon Ramsay recipe for chaos. Yes, there are alternative routes.

You can cut out Muizenberg, St James and Kalk Bay by taking the scenic Boyes Drive but that takes you to the choke point traffic light at Kalk Bay Harbour where you’ll sit and seethe.

Other detours might be longer but quicker (if you know what I mean) but these require good local road knowledge.

Parking woes and alternatives

Of course, once you’ve arrived hot and bothered at your destination, you’ll need to find parking.

Good luck. It has been a long while since I lived in or visited the “deep south” of the Cape Peninsula for so-called fun but, when I did, the quickest and least exasperating way was Metrorail.

This had the added advantage that the Kalk Bay and Glencairn stations are just metres from The Brass Bell and Dixie’s respectively.

My advice to visitors to the Western Cape between December and end-February is abolish all thoughts of doing something “quickly”. Leave your spontaneity at home.

You think the place is called “Slaapstad” because we do things slowly? Nonsense, it’s because everyone is exhausted and in need of a nap when they eventually reach their destinations.

Pictures: Jim Freeman

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