Squeezed between drop-dead-gorgeous mountain scenery and the N2, Swellendam (230km from Cape Town) is a historic town of oak-lined side streets, whitewashed homesteads, gables, gateways and other bits and pieces from the past. The town has a less eventful present than it does an eventful past – for a brief period, a mere three months, it was an independent rebel republic with its own president after the locals became gatvol with the way things were being run. Then, in 1865, at the peak of Swellendam’s golden years as a frontier of civilisation, the town was practically razed by an accidental fire that broke out in a bakery.