Cape Town | As I sit on a balcony in Cape Town’s city centre looking out on glorious Table Mountain on an unusually warm June afternoon, I raise a glass to my travel agent back in Australia who has rescued me and my family several times in just eight months – with probably more to come.

I was last here in November when I came to spend time with my adored mother who, at 80, had the bad luck to be diagnosed with not one, but two, cancers.