When the Klopper family left Tatasberg on Old Year’s Day last year in their nearly brand-new Jimny, they knew they had a day’s rough driving ahead of them. But they nearly missed the mother of all parties, writes Cyril Klopper.

It is ten o’clock on a moonless New Year’s Eve. It is dark. We are close to being engulfed by a raging river in the bone-dry Richtersveld of all places.

The winch cable strains under tension. The rev-counter needle skirts just below the red. Clouds of smoke and dust billow from the wheels so that I cannot see in front of me. Grit stings my eyes.

I hear the concerned voice of my two-year-old daughter, Miri, behind me: “Why is it so mucky?” She starts wiping up dirt fervently with her security blanket.

My wife, Zanie, is standing outside the beams of the Jimny’s blazing lights. Her calls guide me through rocky obstructions rapidly being veiled in a cloak of dust.

To the right the mighty Orange is bursting its banks, and rising...

Five days before, we were in a completely different frame of mind. We finally had the chance to go on holiday as a family. The Jimny was roughly six months old but already kitted out with a winch, suspension upgrade, all-terrain tyres and various little bling-bling modifications in preparation for holiday fun.

Miri, about a month away from her third birthday, was very excited about our trip and had been diligent in her own preparations, sorting out essential toys and packing her Ben-10 sleeping bag and little camp chair.