The scenic Garden Route with its pristine beaches, blue mountains, lush forests and azure lakes, is one of the most beautiful holiday destinations in South Africa; a place to restore the soul and revitalise body and mind.
With False Bay and Table Mountain as backdrops head east on the N2 - a stretch of road along South Africa’s glorious southern coast known as the Garden Route. But first you’ll need to negotiate passage over the forbidding Sir Lowry’s Pass, perilous with tight bends and sheer drops from unimaginable heights, providing spectacular views over deep gorges and distant almost inaccessible hamlets.
Winding your way down the mountain, through a rich tapestry of fertile valley’s and quiet farming communities, you’ll come to Hermanus, a popular seaside holiday resort clinging to the very edge of the continent and famed as the world’s best land-based whale watching site. The Whale Crier announces through his kelp horn where whales have been sighted, bringing droves of locals and visitors to numerous look-out points to watch whales frolic, mate and calve in the bay.
· Hermanus tourism information - www.hermanus.co.za.
· Recommended accommodations are either the Birkenhead House (stunning out-of-town location with awesome views across Walkers Bay) www.birkenheadhouse.com; alternatively the Marine Hermanus (has a great wine selection) www.marine-hermanus.co.za.
A little beyond Hermanus is Gansbaai, known the world over for offering the best shark-cage diving in the country. The ‘Barracuda’ motors out towards Dyer Island where the deck-hands lower a cage into the water, then you soon afterwards. Once you’re safely inside the cage the crew start chumming the water with bloody entrails instantly attracting the attention of underwater predators for miles around.
· Gansbaai tourist information www.places.co.za/html/gansbaai.html.
· There are a number of suspect diving outfits in the area so take care. The recommended company is Unreal Dive (www.unrealdive.com).
· A recommended B&B is the luxury Round House (www.sa-venues.com/wc/roundhouse.htm) - ask for a room at the front. The Round House has a superb whale watching from their third floor viewing deck.
Continuing your drive you’ll pass numerous dozing villages, all surveying stretches of long white beach, until you reach Mossel Bay. A bustling seaside town halfway between Cape Town and Port Elizabeth which has been featured in the Guinness Book of Records as having the mildest all-year climate, second only to Hawaii. The architectural styles and perfectly preserved old stone buildings speak volumes of its fascinating history dating back to its discovery by Bartholomew Dias.
· Mossel Bay tourism information www.mosselbay.co.za
· Accommodations are numerous but the recommended one is African Oceans Manor-on-the-Beach B&B. The most luxurious room is Suite 4 with uninterrupted sea views and an elegant Victorian bathroom. www.africanoceans.co.za
Beyond Mosel Bay is the picture postcard capital of the Garden Route – George. George is bursting with graceful old buildings, numerous museums, the Old Slave Tree that still has an iron chain embedded in its trunk, the oldest church in South Africa and the country’s smallest cathedral. George also has a Victoria Bay, a secluded beach renowned for surfing and a large tidal pool at Herold's Bay.
· George tourism information www.tourismgeorge.co.za
· The Fancourt Hotel & Country Club Estate – ask for a lake view room. www.fancourt.co.za
Cradled in the deep green vastness of misty mountains is the Pan-like fairytale landscape of Wilderness, some 15km east of George. Wilderness is a romantic world of lakes, rivers and estuaries which gently unfold against a backdrop of peaceful and tranquil talcum white beaches with vistas so spectacular it will all but reduce you to verbal beggary.
· Wilderness tourism information www.tourismwilderness.co.za
· Recommended accommodations The Waterside Lodge B&B – ask for the Loerie Cabin. www.watersidelodge.co.za
Surrounded by indigenous forests is Knysna, home to the country’s only national lake and South Africa’s largest estuary. The waters of the Indian Ocean channel through two large sandstone cliffs - the Knysna Heads - forming the gateway to the lagoon, a 21 square kilometre marine reserve. To meet the local colour – a somewhat bohemian, arty crowd - you need to wander down to the town centre to the curio studios and modern art galleries. Book a table at one of the really good eateries and enjoy the village hospitality. A must do excursion is the old Outeniqua Choo-Tjoe steam train, which runs between Knysna and George, via the Lakes area. You’ll also want to spend time at the Knysna Elephant Park.
· Knysna tourism information www.tourismknysna.co.za
· The Knysna Elephant Park www.knysnaelephantpark.co.za
· Outeniqua Choo Tjoe www.onlinesources.co.za/chootjoe
· Highly recommended accommodations are tree-suites of the Phantom Forest Eco Reserve. www.phantomforest.co.za
Further on is Plettenburg Bay, an eco-tourism paradise with no fewer than fifteen private and public nature reserves, including the Tsitsikamma National Park – a twilight zone of canopied trees beyond which lies a world ready to saturate your senses with every sharp shade, sound, and smell nature can bestow. The Park preserves the Khoisan (Bushmen) caves’ heritage rock art. Plet, as the locals call it, is home to vast expanses of unspoilt Cape flora, delicate eco-systems in wetlands and lagoons and forests of unsurpassed beauty with the added stamp of approval from the whales of the southern oceans that regularly appear in Plets waters.
· Plettenburg Bay tourism information www.plettenburgbay.co.za
· Recommended accommodations - Castle on the Cliff, located on its own private estate, with kilometres of its own coastline. www.castleonthecliff.com
Beyond Plettenburg Bay you’ll journey through endless fields of golden wheat swaying in the lazy breeze. Here you’ll find immense Overberg farms that extend from the road verges to beyond the horizon, with only lines of trees marking their boundaries. You’ll also happen across the occasional shaggy thatched village where geese and chickens loiter along the roadside and children rush out to wave at passing cars.
The Garden Route will not fail to capture your imagination. It will sensitise you to this beautiful and fragile area, whose destiny hangs delicately between the very touchy issues of development and conservation. It is a place where past, present and future merge as one, and captures you in its web, compelling you to linger just a little longer.
