It began with Champagne. Not Pongraz, but Moet, poured in the back into cut glasses while I lounged on leather seats, blue fairy-lights on the mirrored ceiling fanning gently to pink and gold and back to blue again and some seriously smoooooothe music playing.

The mission:

To stress-test a luxury limo (and my iPod playlist) on the long haul drive from Joburg to Cape Town, with seven virtual strangers and their luggage in the car. On five hours sleep, in my case - something about Joburg makes me crazy.

One and Only Limousine Hire operate luxury limousines, but not the type with a jacuzzi for the strippers. Instead, they offer brand new glam-mobiles like this Chrysler 300 C 3.5m stretch number, with chrome 20-inch wheels, tailored leather seats, a full bar, perfect climate control, surround sound, DVDs and 2 LCD screens, a PS3, Smash-‘n-grab-proof windows, plugs for your laptop and on board smoke machine, just to start with.

Well how was it? It was luxury while we were awake.

There was bubbly, music, and the stares and pointing people as we started. Add great snackboxes and the pleasure of tweeting to tell all my friends how much fun I was having.

A joburger had warned me the night before to charge my iPod - he said the scenery was "the most boring in the country" but for a Capetonian the flatness and golden closely shaved fields of the highveld are exotic in their own way seen through the tinted windows of living large.

There's space to dream and plenty of clear blue sky dotted with clouds that seem ready to fall onto the earth but miraculously stay completely still.

And gradually these "ver verlate vlaktes" of the old national anthem morphed into undulating golden farmlands of the Freestate.

We skipped the Vaal Meander, Sasolburg and Kroonstad, but you might want to make a stop at some of these places if you have a bit more time when you do the same journey.

Even better, detour for a night into Ficksberg during cherry season, or take an extra day or two to visit the Golden Gate National Park, with its magnificent sunsets and wildlife. It’s a big country.

Road trips are about the places, and impulsive detours, not just about passing through.

But we weren't going nowhere slowly, so much as speeding somewhere fast. In fact, we were pulled over once for doing 138km an hour, and fined. It didn't feel like we were gunning it, so I hope we got a discount on the basis of the vehicle's fine air suspension being deceptive. But I doubt it. That cop was fat.

We stopped at Aldam Estate, Alledamskraal Dam to stretch our legs, take a sunset boat ride to check out some game, and eat dinner. We saw birds and a stray ostrich or two. The resort was empty (presumably most local holidaymakers had gone home after the weekend) and felt oddly like a ghost town.

It claims to be a five star resort, but seems to have disintegrated a bit since the last evaluation, leaving it resembling like a government family camp that's fallen by the wayside.

Hot tip, guys: working toilet latches (and toilets) make your restaurant toilet a whole lot classier, and all it takes is a screwdriver!

The restaurant has a gorgeous view over the dam, the service is friendly and the steaks were so tender I was almost suspicious, but the sweet old-school basting sauce, the bad wine on offer, and Orange Freestate Radio playing softly in the empty hall lent the whole scene an eerie quality, as if we'd all slipped back in time to the 80s and would never escape the ghosts of that time.

Everyone was tired, now, too. Bypassing Bloemfontein, and the grim old overnight institution of Colesberg, we kept flying along, falling asleep to a DVD of Marley and Me, a movie that's probably more coma-inducing than a suicide-dose of sleeping tablets. And confusing, because they keep changing dogs.

They were different sizes and colours. I'm sure hey weren't all even labradors. "Marlies and me?"

I was thinking, puzzled, as I passed out after a final tweet, with my complimentary blow-up cushion preventing me rolling onto my fellow passengers.

I slept through the Groot Karoo, and Prince Albert, where apparently you can pick up some great cheese and sleep over if you're driving. But I wasn't. Co-owner Mark and driver were bouncing that while the rest of us crashed.

By the time we surfaced from airplane-like multiple dozes, we'd passed the scheduled breakfast stop at the heritage town of Maatjiesfontein (the Lord Milner Hotel is another awesome overnight stopover, and also lies on both the Blue Train route and the ordinary train route from Cape Town).

It was 4.30am, dark, and we were nearly in Cape Town.

The dawn light had begun oozing up from the horizon. And it was a bit like landing in a strange country when the sun finally rose. Rain splashed on the windows and flooding lay all around in gleaming flat lakes.

Huge lacquered mountains pouring with white waterfalls surrounded us. We pulled into a petrol station for gas, toilets, coffee and a bacon and egg toastie. All the newspapers had pictures of cars floating around and people canoeing down streets.

We tested the smoke machine as we inched into Cape Town in the Monday morning traffic, past the sodden N2 shacklands towards the mountain, the pretty town, and a massive rainbow.

I think this is when, bleary-eyed and partially crippled from sleeping upright, we agreed that it's a lot more rock 'n roll to hire a limousine for a couple of hours to get to a party and back, or to shoot a music video, than it is to actually live in one for 18 hours straight. Because the last thing you want is whiney groupies.

Of course, at R2000 an hour, it's cheaper to fly business class anyhow.

So overall, a once in a lifetime experience. A blast for the first 1000 km. And something I'll remember for the rest of my life. It's right up there with eating a peacock - not really as good as eating a chicken, but I can say I've done it, and that counts for a lot.

Check out a gallery of the Cape Town - Jozi trip here and read about Jean's stopover in Joburg on Saturday here.