Travelling…over God’s country

Bloganuary Day 14

Today’s Prompt: What is your preferred mode of travel?

I would definitely say the car! Road trips are my favourite.

When I was a kid, it seemed like we were always on the road during school holidays. My dad loved driving and loved visiting both his and my mum’s family. As a result, we would travel to Johannesburg from Pietermaritzburg where we lived, or to the farm or spend the day in Durban or drive to a small town called Harding in KZN. One year we even drove to Cape Town. It’s an 18 hour trip and I really don’t know how my dad coped with all our singing and chatter along the way. I was only 8 years old then and full of energy.

I had dreamed of taking my son on road trips too but it hasn’t quite worked out as planned. We did drive to East London in the Eastern Cape with my dad. That was a 6 or 8 hr trip and Alex sat like a trooper all the way there. He was only 5 or so when we drove down. He was so excited to get there that he didn’t even want to take a bathroom break until mother nature refused to take no for an answer.

The other trip I did take my son on was a trip to Johannesburg with my boyfriend at the time. He was about 10 at the time. We stopped at the smallest church in the Southern Africa at Van Reenan’s Pass. It is called The Landoff Oratory and you can read about it’s history here. It is gorgeous and is surrounded by the most beautiful landscape.

The Little Church. Photo credit: Michelle Frankson
The Coffee Shop next door. Photo Credit: Michelle Frankson

I think the things I love most about road trips is the quality time you get to spend with your travelling companions in the car, the scenery (South Africa is a beautiful country) and the journey.

Ooh the other little road trip that stands out in my mind was the drive from Trumbull, Connecticut to Weehawken, New Jersey and back. It was the end of September and the night time temperature dropped between trips so the trees were green on the way to NJ and on the way back, most had changed colour to the beautiful autumn shades of yellow and orange. It totally blew my mind!

I love flying as well. Most people think me strange but the take-off is my favourite part of the flight. I also love airports. I love that I am surrounded by such a mix of people nd cultures at any point in time and it’s always a vibe. I love flying because it takes me to such distant destinations which have different cultures to be experienced.

It has always been a dream of mine to let my son experience all the major forms of transport at least once. He has flown, taken a long distance bus trip to Port Elizabeth (once was enough!) and had a train ride to Inchanga although we need to do that trip again but in the steam engine. Next up is a cruise. My aim is for that to happen in the next year or two. We were supposed to tick that off last year but covid got in the way.

What’s your favourite way to travel? Let me know in the comments. I would also highly recommend follwing the bloganuary hashtag as I have read great posts on this topic.

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