Kashmir is the stuff of legend.

There's nothing quite like a light shower of human ash before breakfast.

What? No bedding in the cabin?" we ask incredulously.

Namibia can be a bewildering country for the first-timer - it is vast (two-thirds the size of South Africa), sparsely populated (two people a square kilometre, as opposed to nearly 40 in South Africa) and the landscape can be harsh and forbidding.

This is the road that Koos built. In 1960 the provincial government gave Koos van Zyl a bulldozer and eight labourers and instructed him to force a road from the Swartberg Pass into Die Hel, or Gamkaskloof, an isolated valley that could then be reached only by a winding, tough donkey track.

"It's all in here," says Isack Minja , tapping the side of his head. "All you have to do is go very pole pole (Swahili for slowly, slowly)."

As we hit the summit of the Pakhuis Pass coming from Clanwilliam off the N7 from Cape Town, some of the anxiety I have about visiting a place I have exceedingly fond memories of, loosens a little.

Lee is leading our little procession along the narrow footpath.

London, Paris, New York, Amsterdam, Mauritius and the Italian lakes. That's where we have been - and we have stayed for free.

The Holden Manz Wine

Estate lies among the towering

Franschhoek mountains - and a

river runs through it.

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