Photograph: Nature’s Valley before breakfast

Dropping down to Nature’s Valley around tight corners fringed with thick forest I did indeed encounter baboons.

The lagoon looked as smooth as glass in the early morning sun as I pedalled alongside it, until the road came to an end.

In a lone four-by-four with a Gauteng registration, two women also admired the view.

“Van waaraf het jy gery (Where have you ridden from?),” the younger one in the driver’s seat asked.

“Port Elizabeth, wel amper Port Elizabeth (PE, well almost PE),” I answered.

“Volg my. Ek maak jou breakfast (Follow me. I’ll make you breakfast),” she said.

The women were a mother and daughter. A younger woman who represented the third generation of the family that had spent holidays at Nature’s Valley for many years joined us at their rustic beach cottage.

Grandma, from Windhoek and very on-the-ball, was widowed. There was evidence of the two other women’s men being around through their toys – a huge motorbike and a flashy mountain bike – but they were nowhere to be seen. I presumed they were late risers while on holiday.

The youngest woman was a pilot who had spent years flying for oil companies, based in the deserts of Libya and Saudi Arabia. However, she had since gone into the property business in Pretoria with her mother.

Sitting down to a hearty meal of egg, bacon, pap, toast and coffee, they told me how they sometimes watched buck grazing from their veranda.

The (pilot) daughter explained to me that every Christmas of her life the family had come together at the Nature’s Valley holiday home.

“Every Christmas Eve all the holidaymakers would gather at the beach end of the lagoon and wait for Father Christmas to emerge from the forest on the other side. He’d come over to us in a boat, loaded with presents, but first he’d have to get past the teenagers who would try to capsize it!”

After that hospitality I left Nature’s Valley feeling the world was a wonderful place with wonderful scenery and wonderful people.

However, one challenge lay ahead. I had to tackle an uphill pass out of the little paradise, on a full stomach.

COMMENT: Have you ever taken hard exercise after a big meal?