We took a 12-person extended family overseas trip. Here’s how it went

Such is the joy of road trips with young adults: not once do they ask if we’re there yet. Instead they curate playlists, direct the GPS to swanky bars and quirky galleries, dish out snacks and survey with appreciative eyes the passing scenery.

It’s an age since I visited South Africa’s Western Cape with my immediate family; now the rellies and I have arrived en masse. Our multi-generational group of 12 includes two of my siblings, five adult children ranging from their mid-20s to early 30s, and several spouses. All except two Australian sons-in-law are South African-born; this is an opportunity to reconnect with the motherland and introduce our newest family members to the culture they’ve married into.

The quirky Franschhoek wine tram, in South Africa’s Western Cape.

We’ve arrived after a week-long mobile camping safari in Botswana, and are ripe for a touch of luxury. But will our plans measure up? Travel can be fraught enough; holidaying with a large, eclectic group signals potential disaster. The essentials are in place, at least; apart from car hire and flights – wisely outsourced to a travel agent – we’ve arranged everything ourselves. The family WhatsApp group has run hot with suggestions and snap polls; Splitwise, an expense-splitting app, is all set for the oncoming splurge; accommodation, activities and costs have been meticulously logged on a shared Google spreadsheet. Cooking class? Tick. Wine tasting? Double tick. Sojourns to the city, the wine lands and a far-flung beach? The ayes have it. After all, we have just nine days in which to restock the family memory bank.

Bundled into a 10-seater van and a five-seater sedan, we head east from Cape Town International Airport. Tightly packed suburbs melt away and the horizon fills with the Cape Fold ranges. Little over an hour later, we’re gathering around a charcuterie board in the mountains’ shadow at Mirabelle Guesthouse, a self-catering establishment 15 minutes’ walk from Franschhoek’s centre. We have an entire modern villa to ourselves; it sleeps 10, so our two spillovers repair to the thatched cottage on the other side of the swimming pool. This original dwelling isn’t self-catering, but it offers excellent breakfasts of which we avail ourselves the next morning.

The 18th-century Babylonstoren Manor House in South Africa.

Thanks to the gods of travel, punctuality is a family trait; we’re early for the trolleybus at the Franschhoek Wine Tram terminal. This hop-on, hop-off service traces five separate lines, transferring guests between estates on trolleybuses and double-decker trams. Before leaving home we booked tickets online for the orange line, which clatters through mountain-cupped vineyards towards Stellenbosch. But our well-laid plans to visit at least three wineries along this route go awry, so tempted are we by the sybaritic pleasures of Boschendal’s cellar door. Only our pre-booked lunch at Babel, Babylonstoren’s singular restaurant, can entice us back onto the train.

We’re hungry with anticipation. All we know is that the set menu – essential for groups of 11 or more – will feature lamb and fresh fish. The second option, pork and fish, attracted just one vote in our WhatsApp poll; majority rules, I’m afraid. But no one is disappointed.

The chef’s garden at Babylonstoren.

Our table slumps beneath the succulent centrepieces and platters of produce from the estate’s garden, at just under five hectares, and springy loaves from the onsite bakery. Warmed by wines nurtured on this Simonsberg terroir, we disperse to attractions that appeal individually: the garden, modelled on the Dutch East India Company Gardens which restocked ships rounding Cape Point; the wine museum, where the cape’s viticultural history is told; the farm shop’s Scented Room, perfumed with fynbos and waterblommetjies.

Vineyards and mountains in the Franschhoek Winelands.

My brother plots our journey to the west coast for the next morning. Counterintuitively, we head south-east, climbing Franschhoek Pass, stopping to survey the valley yawning behind us, zigzagging through compressed ridges towards Theewaterskloof Dam. The youthful playlist is pumping as we dogleg north to Villiersdorp and veer west through rippling farmland. But the “children” are getting hangry, so we pull up to De Stal in Moorreesburg bang on closing time. No problem for the solitary cook; she obligingly fills our late lunch orders: dagwoods, burgers, toasties, kondensmelk koffie – coffee with condensed milk, the only lunch necessary for my sister and me.

Beach HouseCredit: Beach House

Our convoy splits up now; the van heads to Vredenburg for supplies, the sedan detours to Charlie’s Fish Shop in Saldanha to buy trawler-fresh angelfish for tonight’s braai. The Beach House, a self-catering cottage in the fishing village of Jacobsbaai, disappoints in just one sense: we’re only here for two nights. Nothing lies between us and the ocean but lichen-smeared boulders, alabaster dunes and wreckage from the Barge Margaret, which ran aground during a storm in 2009. The braai coals echo the setting sun; night drips into the ocean like wet tar. Only the beam from the Cape Columbine Lighthouse, 15 kilometres away, tempers the darkness – cold comfort for the barge, lying battered in its watery sarcophagus.

Of all our many shared interests – history, culture, nature, art, wine, food – it’s the latter that’s most binding. Yesterday we ate Saldanha oysters, snoek samosas creamy mussels beside the beach at Voortstrand Restaurant in Paternoster, one of South Africa’s oldest fishing villages. Today we bid Jacobsbaai a desultory farewell and head south for a 10-course lunch at Die Strandloper, sprawled on the porcelain shores of Langebaan at Saldanha Bay. Pellucid wavelets slap the boulders, seagulls arise in clamorous flocks. Cooks move about the hot sand, steaming mussels, deboning snoek, preparing kreef (rock lobster), stirring cauldrons of fish curry and braaing roosterbrood (coal-baked bread). Shaded by a ceiling of woven fishing nets, we lay waste to this bounty.

Paternoster, on the west coast of South Africa. Credit: Getty Images

The 90-minute drive into Cape Town is silent; sleepyheads emerge from their postprandial slumber as we reach the foot of Table Mountain. It’s vaporised by fog; we must conjure it from memory. When I was almost six, my brother, sister and I climbed to the top with our late father; our plan to repeat this seminal event will be dashed by inclement winds and a dearth of time. We have relatives and friends to see, old haunts to revisit. One of them is the clouded tobacco shop on Greenmarket Square from which our father sourced his bespoke pipe blend. Shisha pipes and vapes have replaced traditional smoking accoutrements; our father wouldn’t recognise it.

The family memory bank fills instead with fresh remembrances. Peals of laughter issue from the Bo-Kaap kitchen of Gamidah Jacobs as she instructs us in the art of Cape Malay cooking; we struggle to fold the samosas, but prove masters at eating them. At Cape Point we disperse again, flaring to the furthest points of a peninsula coddled in mist but hemmed by shallows so clarified we might spot the sharks.

Cape Point and Cape of Good Hope.Credit: iStock

We dispense with the sedan; Uber works a charm in Cape Town. Our Sea Point Airbnb, Oldfield House, Number 29 – a Victorian house flanked by a contemporary extension – is a 40-minute walk along the esplanade from the V&A Waterfront. At the bottom of our hill are restaurants and bars and Mojo Market, a restaurant and bar precinct pulsing with live music and childhood flavours: prego rolls, braaivleis, biltong, shawarmas.

Langebaan is a popular coastal retreat on Saldanha Bay.Credit: Getty Images

But as the sun wilts over Table Bay, the chickens return to their nest on the rooftop terrace. Long inducted into our ways, the Australian sons-in-law fire up the braai: boerewors, mielies (corn) and chakalaka accompanied by fine Cape wines. Like this house, we are a melange of youth and seniority, foreign and home-grown, all coexisting amiably beneath the owlish gaze of Lion’s Head. Are we there yet? Yes, I believe we are.

The details

Fly
Qantas flies direct from Sydney to Johannesburg, with onward connections to Cape Town on Airlink. See qantas.com.au; flyairlink.com

Stay
The villa at Mirabelle Guesthouse in Franschhoek sleeps 10; doubles from $305. The neighbouring cottage sleeps 10; doubles from $240, including breakfast; see mirabelle.co.za

The Beach House in Jacobsbaai sleeps up to 12 and costs from $340 a night for the house. See airbnb.com.au

Oldfield House, Number 29 in Sea Point from $1168 a night for up to 12 people; a three-night minimum stay applies. See airbnb.com.au

Visit
Car hire is available at First Car Rental at Cape Town International Airport; see firstcarrental.co.za. Tickets for the Franschhoek Wine Tram cost $30; see winetram.co.za. The set menu lunch at Babel is $100 a person, excluding drinks; see babylonstoren.com. Cape Malay cooking classes at Lekka Kombuis from $66 a person; see lekkakombuis.co.za. Strandloper’s 10-course set lunch is $36 a person. Drinks are BYO; see strandloper.com. Voorstrandt Restaurant in Paternoster is open daily from 11am to 9pm. Bookings are recommended; see voorstrandt.com. Mojo Market is open year-round from 8am (for coffee and breakfast, most stalls open at 11am) to midnight. See mojomarket.co.za

The writer travelled at her own expense.