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Footage of the devastation left behind by the recent Cape storms has been flooding our feeds for the last few days, but as we count the costs of nature’s tantrum, likely, and unlikely heroes are emerging from the deluge of bad news.

In the days before Mother Nature found lipstick on the Cape’s collar and decided to tear the province a new a**hole, I often took my own goddess of destruction on pleasant little road trips down Route 62. It’s a lovely drive, and once you pass the Huguenot Tunnel, and manage to crawl your way through Worcester’s seventy-six traffic lights, it’s an open road all the way to the winery in Robertson.

For intrepid explorers such as myself and the battle-axe in the passenger seat, Robertson is merely a stop, and after buying enough wine to keep the peace in our home, we usually set off towards Swellendam. But before you get there, you must pass through the town of Ashton.

For the longest time, Ashton has resembled Long Street on a Sunday Morning, with trash floating across the myriad temporary four-way stops and people wandering around as if looking for the shoes they lost the night before. It’s not the kind of place that inspires the need to grab your iPhone for a few pics, and the last thing you might associate the town with is impressive erections. Yet all that changed a few years ago.

On another one of our ‘save-the-marriage’ trips, we started noticing frantic activity around the little river that runs through the town, and as we approached the garbage bin water, we noticed that Ashton was in the process of getting a new bridge built. Of course, being cynical by nature, my first thoughts were: somebody scored a lekker tender.

In subsequent trips through the town, we began to grow less suspicious as the concrete monstrosity began taking shape, the arches inching their way into the sky, and over the river – which had by this time begun to have less and less trash in it.

Indeed, the entire town seemed to be in a state of metamorphosis as the main drag suddenly showed signs of improvement. The bridge seemed to have breathed new life into the town, and after remarking to my co-pilot what a difference a little panel-beating can make for old and tired visages, we finally got to cross the new bridge with its McDonalds-like arches.

It’s a lovely bridge, and its influence on the town of Ashton is palpable. But I still wondered about that tender.

So what do my marriage and the Cape storms have to do with Ashton’s bridge, you may ask? Well, both must have cost a bundle, but after the recent stormy weather, it seems to be indestructible.

Ashton’s massive bridge has emerged as a clear winner after massive flooding threw everything, including a kitchen sink, at it. Just like my spouse, it is now abundantly clear that it’s going to take a lot more than a perfect storm to get rid of it. The recent rains and flooding tried their best, but the foundations are solid, and whoever got the tender to build that thing, deserves a case of Ashton’s finest wines.

Perhaps after all the damage left by Mother Nature’s wrath is cleared, you should take a drive along Route 62 and stop off at Ashton for a quick bite to marvel at the bridge that held firm over troubled waters.

As for me and the missus, we realised that some things are made to last, even if a storm hurls kitchen appliances at it from time to time.

Ashton bridge -1, biblical flood -0.

*If you know who took the above picture, please reach out so we can credit – the wife also asked about a maternity photoshoot.