Road Trip Gold

Musician Gil Hockman was on tour in Europe, playing shows everywhere from dingy bars to medieval courtyards, when – out of nowhere – he struck road trip gold in the French countryside.

Annabelle said that I could blink and miss​ Cuzieu – and I did. All it took was a momentary glance to check the GPS and when I looked up I was through the village and out the other side. 

I swung the rented Fiat around. Back in the village I turned down the first side street, parked and stepped out into the heavy summer heat. It was June and I was on tour in Europe – my first tour abroad as a solo musician. My friend Annabelle, a native of this area who had been in Joburg for the past few years working as a French language teacher, told me to check out her home town if I happened to drive past.

I walked back to the main road and snapped a photo to prove I was there. My plan was to send the pic to Annabelle and move on. I was on a tight schedule and I had to get to a gig in Switzerland that evening.

Finding my way across Europe had been quite an experience. Getting the hang of driving on the right (or wrong) side of the road was challenging, and people here are allowed to drive very, very fast on the highways despite the fact that everything is so close together. After two weeks on the road, I’d already done nearly 4 000 km and I was yet to experience that feeling of being on a long, straight road in a wide open space. There’s nothing like the Karoo in Europe where the horizon surrounds you, uninterrupted in all directions. Even taking “back roads” means driving through a seemingly endless succession of ancient villages.