Elgin is apple country. Fact. I travelled here recently to visit the surrounding accommodation options and found myself pleasantly surprised at all the lovely places just off the N2. Many people stop at Peregrine (or the Houw Hoek inn, likely dependant on which venison pies you prefer) on their way out to towns like Greyton or Hermanus, but seldom does anyone disappear down the mysterious ‘Highlands Road’. Likely this is in part because it quickly becomes a dirt road but also because we are all lemmings, in one way or another.

Lemmings. Ian Fleming. James Bond.

I am not James Bond but I do have a license to explore; so back to the road and the Elgin countryside that it criss-crosses. The region is great for sauvignon blancs (and probably many other white wines and things, but this was the one piece of information I remember from a lady at a farm deli. I would have remembered more but I was staring at her range of quiches and pies. I told you it was pie country, didn’t I?).

Other than great white wines, and pies, I am sure the region has many splendid things for you to discover. The whole point of this article really is to say just that: when a signpost to a mysterious road crosses your path, why not just go down it and see what you discover? As a travelling photographer (and explorer too, of sorts) I have had the privilege of seeing such amazing things, all over the known world.

But the unknown world, surely that is the more enticing of the two options…