How to turn the drive from Joburg to Cape Town into a holiday

As Gautengers gear up for the annual exodus, they face a vital choice: which route to take to get to Cape Town? Paul Ash shows the way

It's December and the great road is calling. There are two ways to Cape Town from Joburg - the well-travelled route down the N1 via Bloemfontein and Colesberg; and the "old" road, the N12, via Kimberley and Victoria West. Now that the N12 has been repaired after all the horrible things done to it by overloaded lorries, it is a fast, smooth and viable alternative for a long road trip.

There are good reasons for turning the drive into a mini-exploration. Slow down, spend the night somewhere and take your time. Cape Town will wait.

Some time in December, we'll be on the road before dawn. Apart from the psychological benefits of setting off as the sky begins to lighten, leaving early will give you time to dawdle later. By sunrise you'll be shooting by what used to be called Uncle Charlie's - the old garage that still has an aircraft on its roof - and at the decision point: Kimberley or Bloem?

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DOWN THE N12

This year I'm going via Kimberley. Normally, I would start a bit later and dawdle to the city of diamonds, only because drinks and dinner at the Kimberley Club is one of life's great experiences. The wood-panelled dining room - and the springbok springrolls - are otherworldly. Get there early enough and you can also visit the superb museum, set in the original mining village at the Big Hole, and ride a restored tramcar on the first and only surviving electric tramway in Southern Africa.

If it's too early to stop for the night, keep going south and take the detour at Modderrivier to the Magersfontein battlefield, where Boer fighters, dug-in at the foot of a range of koppies, poured rifle fire into the ranks of the Highland Brigade on a scorching day in December 1899. The visitor centre has excellent displays of pictures, maps, dioramas and artefacts, including a Krupp field gun, but the main attraction is a moving and spooky audiovisual presentation in a reconstructed trench, in front of which the battle plays out in photos and the sounds of soldiers' voices, booming gunfire, rain and neighing horses.

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SOUTH ON THE DIAMOND WAY

From here, the road runs alongside the "Steel Kyalami", the railway between Kimberley and De Aar on which enginemen in the days of steam would wind up their iron horses to sometimes terrifying velocities.

At Hopetown, the Orange River flashes underneath. Next stop Britstown, a classic Karoo dorpie where the old hotel has been revamped as the Trans Karoo Country Lodge. Britstown is midway and a great place to spend the night, but if you're coming from Kimberley, stop here for an early breakfast.

The other, almost-midway staging post is Victoria West, founded in 1843 and named after Queen Victoria. The town used to hold an annual film festival at the Apollo Theatre, its glorious art-deco cinema. The festival is no more and the last time I was there the cinema was home to a local government agency. But it's a pretty town in which to cool your heels. Check out The Trading Post and the Mannetjies Roux Museum, full of memorabilia devoted to the Springbok back, who used to farm nearby.

INTO THE DEEP KAROO

Not long after Victoria West, the Three Sisters beckon. The village is little more than a railway station and a vast garage, with guesthouses dotting the surrounding area. I have heard many reports of a man named Jan Hamman, who apparently has a huge model railway in the attic of his old farmhouse. I plan to stop here on the way to see if it's true.

One story that is probably not true is the one about the ghost that haunts the platform at nearby Travalia siding. Leon Nell, in his book The Great Karoo, tells the story of two railwaymen who were on duty at Travalia one rainswept night when one of them saw a woman on the platform.

"This restless spirit is said to belong to an unknown woman whose dead body was thrown from a passing train at Travalia Station during the South African War," Nell writes. She was buried just metres from the track in a grave topped with stones and a cross.

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BACK ON THE N1

You are now back on the fast road. Go gently - the section between Beaufort West and Laingsburg has a nasty reputation.

Beaufort West itself used to be one of my favourite rest stops, usually at Donkin House, a low-key rooming house, or at the classic Oasis Hotel, which has seen better days. Since I discovered the Karoo National Park, however, if I have time in hand this is where I stop. Just 10km south of town, the unprepossessing park entrance belies the treasures on the other side of the hill, where you might, if you are lucky, see bat-eared foxes foraging near the chalets, as you sit on the stoep and stare at the Nuweveld Mountains, in whose shadow the rest camp is built.

The park has plenty of diversions. There is a 400m-long Karoo Fossil Trail leading right out of the camp's front door, and a 4x4 trail over Pienaar's Pass onto the mountain plateau, where the solitude is priceless and the quiet deafening.

Afterwards, it's great to sit in the main dining room for breakfast, enjoying the '70s décor over a breakfast of eggs and wors while Radio Sonder Grense plays softly in the background.

Heading south, the Nuweveld Mountains recede as the long, spiny hump of the Langeberg begins to rise up in the south. Now you drive across a deceptively dry plain, getting lower and lower until, at Dwyka, you cross a river at the Karoo's lowest point above sea level. The road and the railway hold hands almost all the way to Cape Town and the river crossings are marked with blockhouses built by the British to protect the rail bridges from Boer commandos.

On past Leeu Gamka with its "Hotel" still spelled out on the red tin roof of the old hotel, past Prince Albert Road - where Prince Albert-bound passengers would alight from the Trans Karoo - and into the Koup with its scrubby bush and windpumps and sheep gathered in the shade of concrete farm dams. When there were more trains, I used to pace them along this section. We would pump our fists out the window, trying to get the drivers to hoot. Some did - to raucous cheers - but the rest were too cool for school.

Soon you will see "Laingsburg" spelled out in white stones on a hillside. Go carefully through the town, and not just because the police have cameras.

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If it's late in the day, another treat awaits 30km down the road at Matjiesfontein. For years, the family rest stop was The Lord Milner, the wonderful Victorian folly of a hotel that is the centrepiece to this railway village. As a kid I remember dramatically early starts from Johannesburg just so we could spend the night at "Matjies". Heck, my old man once even flew us down in a borrowed Cessna in which we were tossed about the Karoo summer sky - "like dice in a box", my brother said afterwards - leaving some of us separated from our lunch.

Matjiesfontein, with its towering gum trees, its old fuel pumps, the piano in the bar and the trains hooting at night, was always the last great prize on the road to Cape Town. Perhaps I'll see you there in the bar, where we can wash the dust from our throats and congratulate each other on another road well travelled.