Once a year, our family squeezes into our car, and we dodge roadkill for 550km as we make our way from Cape Town to Keurbooms Strand.

Three rituals have stood the test of time on our journeys through the Garden Route.

We leave before dawn cracks open the sky, we stop halfway for world-famous roosterkoek in Swellendam, and we argue about what to listen to.

I remember one of our first journeys when Khwezi was five.

The soundtrack to the movie Juno was jammed in the CD player, so we listened to it on repeat.

His favourite was the “vampire song” by Antsy Pants, one minute and twenty seconds of melancholy about a vampire who has lost his fangs and now “pretty girls don’t look at me.”

We played it over and over until I couldn’t take it any more.

I asked Khwezi if he knew what a vampire was.

“Yes,” he nodded, eyes wide. “It’s…it’s… lit’s almost like a big red fire truck.”

I tried to change the subject by suggesting we play I Spy.

Khwezi went first. “I spy with my little eye something beginning with S.”

Steering wheel. Stones. Sun. Sandwich. Each guess met a solemn shake of the head. We gave up.

“‘Scalator,” he said proudly.

“You have to spy something you can actually see,” I explained.

He tried again. “Something beginning with B.”

Bread. Brother. Biltong. Blue. Boiled egg. Another round of head-shakes.

“It’s Brennan,” he announced. “She’s in my class.”

One year Sam, our oldest, spent the entire 550km with his nose in a Spud book.

Another year, it was only Rachel, then four, and me on a road trip. I had finally freed the Juno CD, but she insisted on her nursery-rhymes disc. Miss Polly had a dolly who was sick, sick, sick. The wheels on the bus go round and round.

There happened to be a very compelling South Africa–Australia cricket Test match, and every time I surreptitiously switched to the radio commentary, Rachel would screech: “MISS POLLY! MISS POLLY!”

Maya, our youngest, has her own car ritual. On the school run, we listen to mystery podcasts. She goes completely quiet, so enthralled that she doesn’t want to get out of the car when we arrive at school.

I know the feeling. Long before Maya discovered podcasts, Khwezi’s vampire song, Rachel’s nursery rhymes, and Sam’s Spud, there was me in the back seat of my dad’s car.

My road trips as a child always featured a game. I was famous for being tone-deaf, and the game was that I would sing a song, and my family would have to guess what it was.

They never could. I was terrible, but that became our tradition.

On this year’s road trip, we broke with one of our traditions. We left at the crack of dawn as usual, and we stopped to munch on world-famous roosterkoek in Swellendam, but we didn’t argue about what to listen to.

We had made a shared Spotify playlist; everyone added their favourite songs, and we hit shuffle. The car became a lucky dip, and we created a new tradition, listening to each other’s music.

It was an eclectic mix. The Mamas & The Papas. Taylor Swift. Miike Snow. Juluka. Billy Bragg. Burna Boy. The Killers. Bright Blue. Nina Simone. ABBA.

And then Freshlyground’s feel-good folk, jazz, Afro-pop jingle, Doo Be Doo came on.

“Who chose Doo Be Doo?” Jean, my wife, asked.

“Me,” Rachel and I answered in unison.

“It’s one of my best songs,” quipped Maya.

I even caught Khwezi humming along to this catchy tune that celebrates our cultural richness and shared heritage.

In our family, heritage is not simple. We are a blended family. Sam is mine from before I met Jean. Khwezi and Maya are adopted. Rachel is our biological daughter.

I used to think heritage was something you inherit. It is. But on that 550km road trip, as we chugged our way through the beautiful countryside, I learnt it’s also about what you create: the traditions and memories that provide a sense of belonging.