There's no better way to appreciate the majesty of the Cape than from the air.The emerald poly
gons of the vineyards put together like pieces of a puzzle. Stark grey green mountain ranges with lush valleys tucked in between them fed by little silver dams. Golden fields of wheat with concentric lines carved by harvesters stretching out to the horizon wher
e they meet up with electric blue skies and Simpsonesque cloud formations. The cobalt blue sea blending into azure and cerulean as it mingles with the fresh water flowing down an estuary across white sand beaches that are endlessly battered by breakers rolling in from the ends of the Earth.It was one of thos
e summer morning where you can feel that it is going to get stinking hot. There was a temperature inversion with a cap of cool air high up in the atmosphere trapping hot moist air below it so 
that there was 
hardly a breath 
of wind as we went through the ritual o
f waving-blowing kisses-making fists and saying bye-bye-I-love-you to Luca. We were driving out to Worcester to meet up with Erma and Grové, where they had arranged a little four-seater Cessna to take us on a tour of the peninsula.After some last minute calculati
ons to work out exactly how much fuel Mike-Delta-Foxtrot would need to transport the four of us without being so heavy that he couldn't get off the ground, Grové gave us the thumbs-up that we could put on our headsets and get ready for takeoff. Act
ually he had worked out all the calculations the day before and given strict instructions that they should only put in 
half-a-tank, only to arrive at the airfield and discover that they had helpfully filled it to the top. This necessitated swapping planes and the aforementioned calculations.Since it was her birthday present, Anree climbed into the front with Grové and Erma and I slid into the back. This was a fortunate arrangement due to the need to balance out the weight distribution in the plane. If both Grové and I had sat in the front the plane would have been front heavy... and I don't even want to think of what that would imply.
Once we were airborne, Grové handed over the stick and Anree had here first experience piloting a plane. After starting out a bit tentativel
y, she was soon asking about doing loops and all sorts of tricks. The rest of us vetoed that idea, preferring to sit back and enjoy the view a
s it leisurely slipped by below us.
After taking off from Worcester
and flying over the Brandvlei dam
, we saw 
Villiersdorp, Theewaterskloof dam, the Greyton valley, Caledon, the Overberg, Hemel en Aarde Valley and finally Hermanus before turning left and skirting the coast down to Gansbaai. We looked hard for whales and great whites, but didn't see any. But we did spot a tiny white airstrip up above Gansbaai at the Grootbos private nature reserve.
We buzzed the runway once to scare of any of the private nature that may have wandered onto the landing strip. There was no game, but there was a car in the way so we had to make another circle to wait for it to move on before landing.
There waiting for us on the ground was our ride, a Grootbos combi that had come to pick us up from the airstrip and take us back to the main lodge. All that flying had left us famished and parched, so we wasted no time in ordering a bottle of local Ataraxia sauvignon blanc, pork loin and cape salmon. As we sat there savouring our wine, enjoying the view down the mountain and out over Walker Bay we were treated to the sight of a rooivalk (the kestrel not the attack helicopter) hovering motionless in the air in front of us looking out for prey on the ground.
After we had finished off our sorbets and drained the last of the coffee from our cups, we wandered out by the swimming pool and met up with Brummer, the local nature guide, and his wife/girlfriend/partner. They took us on a walk through the old growth milkwood forest next to the lodge and treated us to a lesson on birding and botany that left us feeling like coming straight home and planting some milkwood, stinkwood and wild peach trees in the garden.
While we went back for a swim in the pool, Grové offered to take our guides for a flip in the plane. Unfortunately, a sea mist came out of nowhere and reduced visibility to the point where they couldn't take off. We got the call from Grové that we should pack up and head back to the airstrip to wait for a gap in the cloud so we could take off.
After an agonizing wait and working through all the possibilities of how we might be able to get home if we didn't get a gap, the mist lightened up enough that we could make a dash for a hole that appeared in the clouds. Mike-Delta-Foxtrot shot up through the clouds, did a couple of sharp turns ... that had Anree calling for loops... and then we were up through the clouds into the sunlight.
Anree took another turn at the stick and ended up flying for quite a while, while we gazed out the windows at the colors that lengthening rays of the afternoon sun were bringing out of the fields below and the thunderclouds rolling across the karoo on the horizon. The trip got a little bumpy as the wind off the mountains caused a bit of turbulence. But all too soon we were touching down on the runway back at Worcester airfield and our magical Sunday afternoon drew to a close.
