The Other Side of the Garden
BBC TopGear India|South Africa Booklet

South Africa’s Garden Route is a lush, romantic drive. Typically. The other half is the dramatic inland drive through red desert, past big birds and big mountains and big bottles of wine...

Vardhan Kondvikar
The Other Side of the Garden

I have some tangential history with Mercedes-Benz in South Africa.My family, for some reason, decided to make a 1963 fintail part of it – it was second-hand and had been used rather badly, so it kept going wrong, but it was magnificent. Vast, with creaky leather, and to a six-year-old boy, something between the Titanic and a spaceship, designed for epic trips, possibly catching wild animals on the way. God knows why I wasn’t allowed to take it on one.

Years later, car gone, I found a South African car magazine that had a fintail, the same kind, being driven through the Karoo, an arid, ochre semi-desert, clouds of red dust enticingly backlit, the whole seeming exactly the kind of once-in-a life time journey I’d dreamt of. The CLA I’m in is rather smaller, but the Karoo – probably from ‘garo’, a Khoikhoi word meaning ‘desert’ – is just as epic. This is the flip-side of the Garden Route, that lush, romantic, wine-strewn drive between Cape Town and Port Elizabeth. This is haunting, beautiful, and you only need to go through a small part of it to feel its muscles. And this is only the Klein Karoo, the little one...

Starting off in Port Elizabeth, you wouldn’t imagine you’re going to find this in your path. PE is often windy, often rainy, a great destination for whale-watching, and the road to Knysna is a highway with little to do other than get used to South Africa’s interesting view of overtaking: if you’re being passed, you move all the way to the left, driving on the wide shoulder, so that the guy passing you doesn’t have to stress out. He flashes his hazard lights to thank you, you flash your high beams to tell him it wasn’t a problem.

Diese Geschichte stammt aus der South Africa Booklet-Ausgabe von BBC TopGear India.

Starten Sie Ihre 7-tägige kostenlose Testversion von Magzter GOLD, um auf Tausende kuratierte Premium-Storys sowie über 8.000 Zeitschriften und Zeitungen zuzugreifen.

Diese Geschichte stammt aus der South Africa Booklet-Ausgabe von BBC TopGear India.

Starten Sie Ihre 7-tägige kostenlose Testversion von Magzter GOLD, um auf Tausende kuratierte Premium-Storys sowie über 8.000 Zeitschriften und Zeitungen zuzugreifen.

WEITERE ARTIKEL AUS BBC TOPGEAR INDIAAlle anzeigen
MG COMET
BBC TopGear India

MG COMET

A LOT OF PEOPLE HAD THOUGHT THIS CAR TO BE COMPLETELY useless when it came out.

time-read
1 min  |
November 2024
BMW i7
BBC TopGear India

BMW i7

WHEN THE i7 PULLED INTO MY GARAGE AND PARKED ITSELF next to the Mercedes EQA and the MG Comet, it just struck me that this is how the future will be.

time-read
2 Minuten  |
November 2024
SPECIAL RELATIONSHIP
BBC TopGear India

SPECIAL RELATIONSHIP

McLaren's finest faces off Corvette's nat-asp swansong as the Brits and the Americans square up... in a Spanish playground. Expect fireworks

time-read
6 Minuten  |
November 2024
NEXT LEVEL
BBC TopGear India

NEXT LEVEL

Thought the 750S was fast? The McLaren P1's successor - the W1 is ready to spread its wings

time-read
6 Minuten  |
November 2024
MANUAL LABOUR
BBC TopGear India

MANUAL LABOUR

Two cars from opposite ends of the performance spectrum with one crucial thing in common...

time-read
5 Minuten  |
November 2024
PRO VS SLOW
BBC TopGear India

PRO VS SLOW

At last, we have our hands on the Valkyrie. But is its performance only accessible for the pros... or can anyone enjoy it?

time-read
5 Minuten  |
November 2024
THE OUTBURST OF OFFROADING
BBC TopGear India

THE OUTBURST OF OFFROADING

The high-volume market is a point of interest for all manufacturers here in India.

time-read
4 Minuten  |
November 2024
THE BATTLE OF CRUISER-COMMUTERS
BBC TopGear India

THE BATTLE OF CRUISER-COMMUTERS

WHO DOES THE BEST COMMUTER WORK WHILE NOT BEING A TRUE COMMUTER MOTORCYCLE?

time-read
7 Minuten  |
November 2024
LEAVING EVERYTHING ON THE TRACK
BBC TopGear India

LEAVING EVERYTHING ON THE TRACK

FT. YMRP ROUND 3 From being second, I DNF'd from the race on the last corner

time-read
4 Minuten  |
November 2024
BEHIND THE BARS,
BBC TopGear India

BEHIND THE BARS,

THE DIFFERENT KIND

time-read
3 Minuten  |
November 2024