Desmond and the Mountain Pass
Cape Town - It’s a late spring afternoon and I’m wrapping up my day job responsibilities to get through to Woodstock for the interview post a weeklong wait of preparation holding tangible excitement. We meet at Des’ Cape Town home, a typically characteristic university estate cottage and settle down for a chat over a red espresso, a scent that reminds me of my childhood. I feel welcomed and at ease. Even his dog seems to like me. Des’ story of a then engineer turned freelance photographer is something I’m feeling a warm kinship to. I’ve too just recently resigned and am beginning my departure that is the sunset on a shackled corporate life. This is all too perfectly poised, I think. Selfishly, I lean more towards serving my interests prodding and changing tact around the questioning but pulling it back to centre in getting what I came here for.
The man in question, Desmond Louw.
What strikes me about my encounter is that Des has designed a simple life, stripping the complicated items that we get sucked into when committed to the rat race. The cars, the houses and the corporate ladder. I’m eager to walk the same path and I have a feeling that there are more of us out there that want this too. Summers in Europe, Summers in South Africa, perennial joy and the ideal we lust for. That is the life Des has designed with intention and purpose…” How’d you keep busy during lockdown?” I ask “by finishing up my Mountain cabin in Bainskloof, riding mountain bike and eating chocolate” This has me perplexed. Des scrolls through the roller deck of cabin photos. Romance comes to mind with an increased motivation to leave the complicated life behind. We cover an array of subjects centred around the photography world and we deep dive into specific items that need addressing like light, lines on the car and the specific touches to give it that unique perspective (The pressure mounts).
Des’s deep-rooted passion is evident as he passes me each one of his lenses, meticulously describing the individual attributes like the master craftsman he is. I’m immediately drawn to this type of speak and understand why his photos are the perfect final product that they are. It’s all about this curated process. It’s intoxicating. I fire off a series of questions, all prepped to somehow peel away the layers of creativity to attempt to retain a fraction of the tips laid out.
It’s my turn to show him the gear I’ll be using, being an old Nikon D3100 on a long-term loan agreement with a good friend of mine. Des laughs, reminiscing over the good old days. In my mind, the conversation quickly becomes a shroud of convoluted tips around shutter speeds and aperture settings. What could possibly go wrong?
I grow increasingly weary of the shadows as they creep up the walls and I’m torn between staying and chatting to Des and being on my way. There’s work to do and then there is that minor issue of bridging the distance between the Pass and my current position at the ungodly hour of 16:30. Cape Town not getting the memo that I was needing to make Sunset so instead, deciding to hamper my progress by inserting rows of cars neatly packed together in what my corporate friends describe as N1 afternoon traffic. What happened to this new work-from-home policy?
There are many things that Bainskloof does well…the vistas, the relative quietness and the driving experience on offer but what it doesn’t do well is lend itself to ‘amateur hour’. It’s an intricate snaking web of road network built by engineers who, at that time, would never expect anything wider than a mule and cart to navigate through their product, let alone 2 meters wide of modern-day Stuttgart premium sedan. It’s an unforgiving series of blind hairpins, long winding crests and undulation, enough to sharpen the senses and raise endomorphic levels. To worsen matters, there had been a car that had crashed off the roadside edge two days prior, the crime scene tape still fluttering in the wind (I later learnt that both occupants came out unscathed) Des, being a local to the region, issues warning, “Just be careful, dude”. I’m determined to not make use of the German automaker’s plethora of safety devices. Lord, my non-existent reputation as a freelance motoring journalist would be in the ruin and left outside to rust for all of eternity in a spate of keyboard warrior backlash. Imagine.
The roads are long overdue for a serious refurbishing but features low on the priority list with maintenance budgets being allocated to commerce serving passages connecting the Northern parts of South Africa to Cape Town like the Huguenot Tunnel and Sir Lowry’s Pass. Much needed rainfall had only exacerbated conditions and I had earlier barely escaped the perils of treachery that is a Sea Point driveway (More on that later). How would I survive , driving straight into the eye of the storm that would be a mountain pass? My only hope of not binning 2.5 million rands worth of Gran Tourer but also to somehow disseminate the learnings passed on by Des and channelling the inner photography god in me.
About that Mercedes...there’s very little left wanting from the GT. It has it all. You get one of the plushest detailed interiors where the design and finish is a perfect blend of luxury and style. From the details of the air vents to the all-glass display…it’s a class act. Sure, you’re missing the growl from a V8 but that doesn’t take anything away from the technology that’s on offer in the GT53 which is a convincing package. With power figures of 320kW and 520 Nm of torque from the in-line 3.0-litre 6-cylinder turbo with an electric auxiliary compressor sent to all four wheels thanks to the AMG SPEEDSHIFT TCT 9-speed transmission and four-wheel drive. The charge is provided by a supercharger which works with the electric motor before handing over boosting responsibilities to a turbocharger, reducing any lag that may exist (Let that marinate over night). All that means that the 0-100km/h milestone is achieved in 4.5 seconds which is astonishing when you factor in that it’s moving just over two tons of Grand Touring coupé, from a standstill.
Flick the steering wheel-mounted toggle switch into race mode and everything tightens up with the right snarls and barks that echo up the mountain face of the Pass. There’s that dubious giggle from the driver. The same toggle switch, likely is the only analogue remains in what is now a completely futuristic driving experience (Please don’t remove that, Mercedes). I find the sport+ mode the happy compromise between performance and comfort.
Whilst not quite the right option for the tight street scenes of a Sea Side suburb, once out of town the GT comes into its own and is the perfect companion for the conditions that lay ahead. Thanks to the high profile of the Pirelli P-Zero tyre, offering oodles of grip and absorbing the bumps and abrasive nature of the beaten path with no discomfort in the cabin. Impressive. The alcantara wrapped steering wheel, thick and commanding when at the helm of this leviathan.
Agility isn’t something you’d associate with the big tourer but with the GT it’s ensured through the assistance of rear-axle steering when manoeuvring through the tight corners of Bainskloof. Threading a needle using a tow rope comes to mind and I’m left wide-eyed at the actualisation of the GT getting it right corner after corner. Dropping digits from the 63 marque certainly hasn’t hampered the driving experience.
About that shoot. It was a stumbling comedy of errors with the tripod embodying an almost spider-like persona, collapsing at will, eventually deciding to firm up, accompanying a sigh from the hopeful photographer (Me). The sporadic gusts of wind and Ill-prepared choice in footwear (veldskoene for you) proving to dismantle my ambition of an angled shot with the river in the background after climbing a cliff edge. (Sorry, Des) I had resigned to the feeling that perhaps this was my impending doom.
In the end, thank god the car did most of the driving for me as my mind was elsewhere, thinking about the learnings of Des and how’d I’d likely spoil my chances. You were wondering about that Sea Point pavement, right? Full disclosure…Let’s just say dismounting and misjudging an unfinished pavement results in a rather uncomfortable sound. We live and we learn. Next time we’ll do better and something that Des said that sticks with me: ”We all know this but we really don’t need that much money”.
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