Barberton is the pace of Doc and Peekay. Where millions of people read "Absoloodle!" for the first time.

This is the place where Bryce Courtenay's The Power of One was based. It was everything I imagined it was. I thought I even saw the ghost of a young Peekay sitting a rock when Doc took his photo for the first time. Absoloodle!

And like the book, Barberton is one of the gateways to the Royal Kingdom of Swaziland. The tiny landlocked country in a sea of South Africa. To get there, you have to drive up and up and across some very remote and beautiful South Africa mountain passes. Roads they might be, but the places they took us where outstanding. In some places where we stopped, we fancied we were the only people for as far as the eyes could see!

Like any border post, the Swazi one was typical of a remote mountain place. Just the building, a tattered flag hanging limply against the pole. Perhaps the only distinguishing feature was that the police sergeant seemed not to notice that one of the lenses of his glasses was missing. Was he just getting with it? Or did he not really know? He seemed like he didn't really care! Absoloodle!

We were very pleasantly surprised to arrive at the Mlilwane Wildlife Sanctuary, our sanctuary for the night. This is place where the old kings use to hunt for their personal pleasure. Here was a place where our night's accommodation was a large reed beehive shaped hut. Just like the kings of old had. But now our neighbours were small herds of impala and nyala antelopes with the odd family thrown in for good measure!

But to get to where we needed to go, we had to pass through Mbabane, the capital of Swaziland, and just miss the chicken scratching in dirty of a double lane national highway, oblivious to the proximity of the traffic thundering by! But how DID it get there? And why did it cross the road?