A beautiful valley, a potential assignation...

This is a view of the beautiful Constantia Valley taken from Ou Kaapse Weg, the road that winds up the Steenberg mountains towards the tip of the Cape Peninsula. This "Old Cape" road is actually a modern construction, completed in the 1968. Before then, the route south followed the coast of False Bay by road and rail.

Constantia is the oldest wine-growing region in the southern hemisphere. Bounded by mountains and sea, it has a unique terroir and has been making award-winning wines since the late 1600s at estates like Groot Constantia, described in my blog last month.


When Louise, the heroine of my novel The Girl from Simon's Bay, takes the train from Simon's Town, she would have passed through the valley and admired the Constantiaberg, the bulky mountain that rises 900m above its verdant floor. But Louise's family is poor and she travels the line only a few times. Once, with her parents to experience the excitement of the city, then, more sombrely, to visit her boyfriend in a reformatory, and later, stealthily, to meet her lover, David. When writing the book, I was tempted to create an assignation for the young pair in Constantia - that glorious valley - but realised it would be safer for them to blend into the bustle of Cape Town. In the quieter suburbs, they would have stood out as a mixed race couple. When travelling to meet David, Louise ignores the passing scenery, keeps her head bent and her eyes down after examining each of her fellow passengers.
An elderly couple. A labourer. A mother with a child in school uniform.
No-one recognised me. My heart raced with the possibility of a successful escape.
On her return journey, though, she looks out at the soaring mountains and the lush valley. There is no need to hide. No-one knows where she has been.
Or do they?