The Cape of Good Hope - Cape Point, Chapman's Peak Drive and African Penguins.

We can't say we weren't warned. There were signs everywhere and at least one local told us to lock the car even if we were standing next to it. 'They will open the doors and steal your food'. We have been the victims of car break-ins twice in recent years and it was not an experience we wished to repeat.

David, however, just sometimes won't take advice - and he was hungry. He opened the boot of our car to retrieve a couple of bread rolls from his backpack. Within seconds the thief had leapt from the bushes and dashed toward us. David threw the rolls back into the boot, slammed the lid closed and retreated, leaving me trapped in the front seat with the thief staring malevolently down at me from the roof of the car parked beside us. It was as if he was daring me to be foolish enough to open the door.

Cape Town, South Africa

With its beautiful colonial buildings, stunning setting in the shadow of Table Mountain and slightly exotic edge, Cape Town is one of the great undiscovered tourist destinations amongst Australians and North Americans. We had 48 hours here before we began our South African road trip and it wasn't enough.

The biggest surprise about Cape Town is how modern and orderly it felt. We arrived so long after dark that even David was concerned about navigating to our hotel. We need not have worried. The route to the city was sign-posted and well-lit and driving in Cape Town turned out to be no more difficult than driving in Sydney. Arriving at night had the benefit that we had the roads very much to ourselves. Within an hour of touching down we were safely ensconced in our hotel room.

South Africa - Cape Town to Port Elizabeth via The Winelands and The Garden Route.

Africa - I had visions of elephants, giraffes, lions and zebras loping across the veldt, silhouetted against the setting sun, David and I giving chase from the back of a jeep, binoculars in one hand, long lens camera in the other.

As it turned out my 'wind in the hair, communing with wildlife' dream didn't quite match up with D's idealised view of the dark continent. Did you know they make wine in Africa - on picture-postcard estates with beautiful views, magnificent Cape Dutch architecture and flowering yellow rose bushes at the end of each row of vines? I didn't! Did you know they have modern cities with orderly traffic where driving a car is no more fraught than Sydney in peak hour? I didn't. Well they do and it turns out that this little corner of very bucolic and European Africa is the bit David brought me to.

Sydney, Australia - The top 5 things tourists do which locals avoid.

Have you ever wondered whether Egyptians visit the pyramids, Parisians climb the Eiffel Tower or New Yorkers wander around the Statute of Liberty? David and I have done all these things as well as countless other iconic activities around the world, but I have often wondered whether locals living their lives every day in the shadow of such massive tourist drawcards ever bother to visit them.

Mention Sydney and 'Things to do' to any tourist and I can almost guarantee which activity will be the top of their list.  It has become so popular it is almost synonymous with the city. Yet I haven't done it, nor has David, our adult children, or most of our friends. I am sure you can guess what I am talking about: if you have been a tourist in Sydney you have probably done it yourself.