by Bodil Sörensen
The ‘real’ Garden Route stretches from Heidelberg to Storms River but even the South Africans argue a bit about the start and stop. The Garden Route is just a small part of the fantastic coastline of southern South Africa. The area in between Cape Town and Port Elizabeth is like a beautiful necklace filled with spectacular, precious gemstones. We have had the opportunity to visit some of them.
STRAND and GORDON’S BAY - We just passed through these small sea side towns beautifully located by the coast. Going towards BETTY’S BAY the road is literally built on the cliffs of the coastline. In Betty’s Bay you can visit a large population of the South African penguins.
HERMANUS is the place to be if you want to go whale watching either from the nice walk on the shore or from a boat in the bay. In GANSBAAI you can choose from a number of companies that can take you diving with sharks.
The most southern part of Africa is CAPE ARGULHAS. It is a quite rough and windy place but worth going to if you want to tick that of your to-do-list! We stayed for one night in ARNISTON close to Cape Argulhas and it is a beautiful little fishing village with some really nice beaches and a cave to visit. From Arniston there is a long drive to reach the ocean again at Mosselbay. The drive is nice though and goes through farmlands with a lot of sheep and ostriches.
WILDERNESS is a very nice sea side town past the bigger town GEORGE. Wilderness has great beaches and very nice dining. The first time we were in this area we flew back from George and the second time we started out in George. It is a small airport and everything is close and easy when it comes to check-in/departure and leaving/picking up rental cars.
KNYSNA is just wonderful! The little town is located on a lagoon. Go to the HEADS for lunch and you will have a wonderful view of the gap and the cliffs where the ocean meets the lagoon.
PLETTENBERG BAY offers plenty of beaches and nice restaurants. We stayed in KEURBOOMS RIVIER, close to Plett and KEURBOOMS STRAND, in a small compound called Silver Ranch. The house that we rented was very nice and sleeps ten. In the middle of the compound there is a fenced in area with springbok and some geese and it also has a common pool and a small playground. We spent some six nights here and the kids had a great time. Some of what we did was, going to different beaches, for example NATURE’S VALLEY and ROBBESBERG’S BEACH. We went to JAFFREY’S BAY which is the ‘capital’ of surfing. On the same day we went to FRANCI’S BAY where it looked like all the cool surfers grandparents live, very posh, nice and tidy! This whole area offers a lot. You will find nice beaches, good food and a lot of outdoor activities. One really nice thing we did was renting a boat and cruise the Keurbooms river. It had sweet water and a lot of small sandy beaches along the five kilometres we went up the river.
I would say, if you go to this part of the world you will minimize the unpleasant surprises a vacation sometimes might have and maximize everything positive you would like to fit into one.
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