The road to Cederberg Winery runs through the Algeria forest, in the Cederberg, and up, up, up through and over the treacherous, untarred washboard of the Uitkyk Pass: by the time you get to the top, let me tell you, you need more than a glasie wyn to put you to rights again. Not that the wine is bad drinking, mind you – it’s blerrie lekker, actually – and the scenery is staggering. If you get my meaning.

We went up there, in Shaun’s bakkie, with Shaun driving and the back wheels of the bakkie sliding out occasionally, edging towards the cliff edge, and when we were there, we went for a bit of a walk along the road through the vineyards, and then some wine-tasting, a side-trip into one of the nature reserves so Eve and Shaun could go scrambling up rocks, and then all the way back down again.

‘So tell me,’ I said, to the nice young woman pouring out wine for the wine-tasting, ‘how do you get the stuff out of here.’ Thinking, they take the long way out, surely, inland into the Karroo, and then down again somewhere, where the roads are tarred and the hills have been ironed out somewhat.

‘We take the wine out down the pass,’ she said. ‘By truck.’

‘You take wine down the pass, in trucks?!’ I asked, incredulously.

‘Oh,’ she said lightly. ‘Our drivers do it so often, they can do it in their sleep.’

‘I hope not,’ I answered.

Just in case you were wondering, here are some photos….