We were sitting enjoying our lunch in the restaurant at Grootbos Nature Reserve near Cape Town, when in walked Monty Don. It turns out that he was a guest of South African Tourism in preparation for a competition called ‘My Mission to South Africa’ which is being run in association with The Guardian. It turned out that he was sort of reverse stalking us, in that several of the places we had been to were on his itinerary – Harold Porter Botanic Garden, Kirstenbosch and Babylonstoren as well as Grootbos. I didn’t know whether to be miffed that the places we had spent ages researching (I do realize everyone knows about Kirstenbosch) were about to be given major exposure, or thrilled that we had managed to pick the best!
