Better to travel by Richard Webb

LE KAP

WINTER 2015

It’s better to travel ... Journeys are the midwives of thought. Few places are more conducive to internal conversations than a moving train, ship, car or plane. BY RICHARD WEBB

I owe a lot to Alain de Botton. His book, the Art of Travel, is not just a thought-provoking book; it also forms the inspiration to write this story. In this book he says, ‘there is an almost quaint correlation between what is in front of our eyes and the thoughts we are able to have in our heads; large thoughts at times requiring large views, new thoughts, new places. Introspective reflections which are liable to stall are helped along by the flow of the landscape’. ‘At the end of hours of train-dreaming, we may feel we have been returned to ourselves - that is, brought back into contact with emotions and ideas of importance to us. It is not necessarily at home that we best encounter our true selves. The furniture insists that we cannot change because it does not; the domestic setting keeps us tethered to the person we are in ordinary life, but who may not be who we essentially are,’ he wrote. The pleasure we derive from a journey is often more dependent on the mindset we travel with, than on our destination. So, if mobility were a precursor to inspiration, what would be my most beautiful ‘yesteryear’ way to travel? De Botton again: ‘What we seek, at the deepest level, is inwardly to resemble, rather than physically to

possess, the objects and places that touch us through their beauty.’ Nostalgia, romance and the glamour associated with rail travel get my heart going ‘clickety-clack’. The Flying Scotsman, named after the rail service running between King’s Cross station in London and Edinburgh in Scotland and operated by North Eastern Railway, is surely the most memorable train journey ever. From the 1920s the train was considered to be the height of luxury, with first-class restaurant facilities, a cocktail bar and radio equipment, so passengers could listen to the BBC. In 1928, it was re-worked to enable a new crew to take over without stopping the train, allowing it to haul the first ever non-stop London to Edinburgh service, reducing the journey time to eight hours. It also became the first locomotive to clock a top speed of 160 km/h. In 1928, the train broke the record for the longest regular non-stop train journey in the world, when it ran an express service for the entire 393-mile route. This 3-cylinder locomotive carried 8 tons of coal, 19 000 litres of water and had racked up 4 million kilometres. But in 1958, in a historic move, which would signal the decline of steam, The Flying Scotsman was hauled by a diesel locomotive for the first time.

LE KAP

A HEART LIKE NO OTHER CONTINENTAL GT V8

WINTER 2015

Some 90 years ago, a legend that rivaled anything Hollywood could dream up at the time, ‘Bentley Boy’ Captain Woolf ‘Babe’ Barnato provided the South African connection. A financier and racing driver, Barnato divided his early life between London and Johannesburg as the heir to the Kimberley diamond mines. His first Bentley, a 3 litre purchased in 1925, so inspired him that he bought the company from owner W O Bentley just 12 months later. Barnato won many important races in Bentleys and became the only Le Mans driver with a perfect win-to-start ratio. He profoundly influenced the most quintessentially British automotive brand in history – Bentley.

Bentley Motors SA

The new Bentley Continental GT V8 redefines Grand Touring with an exhilarating twist of innovation: A 4.0-litre twin-turbocharged engine. Its turbochargers are mounted within the ‘V’ for efficiency and weight reduction, and variable displacement allows for a seamless switch from a visceral V8 to an effortless V4. It makes an awe-inspiring sound and gives the 8-speed transmission, all-wheel drive Continental GT V8 the power to combine dynamic sports performance with best-in-class Grand Tourer range.

For some, cars like Bentley are an opulent and ostentatious display of wealth – even a cry for attention, perhaps. For others, and I include myself, they are a thing of beauty and craftsmanship of a bygone era. Yet they have a future, as the latest models are cleaner, more frugal, safer and faster than ever and therefore are worthy machines to covet. By road, there may be no other more satisfying way to travel. >

DIFFERENTLY DRIVEN.

1929 Bentley Blower

Suggested Retail Price: R3 300 000.00 (incl VAT), price excludes delivery fees and optional equipment, please contact your nearest dealer to book a test drive.

BENTLEY JOHANNESBURG

Corner William Nicol & Bryanston Drive, Johannesburg, Gauteng, South Africa For information call +27 (0) 11 361 6500 or visit www.imperialcollection.co.za

BENTLEY CAPE TOWN Bentley Mulsanne Speed - The ultimate in Luxury and Performance

10 Hospital Street, Harbour Edge Building, Cape Town, Western Cape, South Africa For information call +27 (0) 21 419 0595 or visit www.imperialcollection.co.za

JOHANNESBURG | CAPE TOWN

Fuel consumption figures for the Continental GT V8 in mpg (l/100km): Urban 18.4 (15.4); Extra Urban 36.7 (7.7); Combined 26.7 (10.5). CO2 Emissions (g/km): 246. Fuel consumption figures are provisional and subject to Type Approval. The name ‘Bentley’ and the ‘B’ in wings device are registered trademarks. © 2011 Bentley Motors Limited. Model shown: Continental GT V8.

LE KAP

WINTER 2015

For me, the Queen Elizabeth 2, often referred to simply as QE2, is the transatlantic liner I would have chosen as an object of ocean going beauty. Queen Elizabeth 2 was built by the John Brown Shipyard in Scotland on the same plot as the Lusitania and was launched by the Queen in 1969. This vessel was a luxurious place to be. In excess of 600 000 litres of beverages, including 70 000 bottles of champagne, were consumed on board annually. The ship has circumnavigated the globe 25 times; every year the pampered passengers consumed 20 tons of lobster and a ton of caviar. The ship crossed the Atlantic 801 times in its lifetime whilst shoppers indulged in its luxurious shopping arcade with 11 boutiques, including Harrods. Silver plaques commemorate the visits of every member of the Royal Family, as well as our own Nelson Mandela. However, by the mid 1960s, transatlantic travel was dominated by air travel due to its speed and low cost relative to the sea route, and expansion of air travel showed no signs of slowing down. My favourite aircraft was designed and built in California by the Douglas Aircraft Company. The DC-3 was originally designed as a luxury airliner for American Airlines for a 14-berth sleeper service from New York to Chicago complete with dressing rooms, a ‘honeymoon cabin,’ and a galley, serving hot meals. Easy to fly, simple to maintain and suitable for short take off and landing from dirt strips and grass runways, the 28-seat Douglas DC-3 was known affectionately as a ‘Dakota’. Sixteen thousand were built and around 2 000 still fly today. Some of these sleek aircraft are used for crop spraying and rescue work, research and exploration, and others for joy flights and of course, freight. These loveable aircraft were also among the heroes of the Berlin Airlift of 1948-9 when the Allied Forces provided food relief to Berlin as Stalin tried to blockade the city into Soviet submission. It has been described with some affection, as ‘a collection of parts flying in loose formation,’ but both pilots and operators believed that the only alternative for a DC-3 was another DC-3. The versatile DC-3 also served the North and South Poles with skis as landing

gear and floats fitted to operate as seaplanes. This beautifully designed and engineered aircraft still has a long life ahead of it. In the 1942 film, Casablanca, Humphrey Bogart ensured that Ilsa and her lover, Victor, boarded a DC3 to safety, and one cannot get more evocative than that. Here’s looking at you, kid!

The last word again goes to Alain de Botton: ‘If we find poetry in the service station and motel, if we are drawn to the airport or train carriage, it is perhaps because, in spite of their architectural compromises and discomforts, in spite of their garish colours and harsh lighting, we implicitly feel that these isolated places offer us a material setting for an alternative to the selfish ease, the habits and confinement of the ordinary, rooted world.’ I couldn’t say it any better.

CMY