The Garden Route
'Up the Garden Path'
'The further one goes the less one knows!' - Lao-tzu 6th century BC Chinese philosopher
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The larger towns Knysna, Plettenberg Bay, George, Oudtshoorn, Mossel Bay all have excellent guesthouses, restaurants, shops and museums [you can even catch a steam train from outside one of them] in addition to its marvellous array of natural wonders [including the world famous Kango Caves]. The scenery is, as the following description shows, not only magnificent but very diverse-lending itself wonderfully to a lengthy [5 days plus] varied personalised tour. A taste of Eden!
The graceful sinuous curves of the Southern Cape Coast embrace a hinterland of astonishing beauty-known to the early Khoikoi inhabitants as the Land of the Outeniqua a ‘man laden with honey’. Nestling between the peaks of the Outeniqua and Langkloof Mountains in the north and the translucent turquoise waters of the Indian Ocean in the south this narrow coastal terrace nurtures a forested kingdom of staggering proportions.
Here gigantic yellowwood trees break through a roller-coasting canopy of green, which stretches as far as the eye can see. In this dim, green, creeper draped world elephants pad about the forest floor in the company of a profusion of flora and fauna.
This is the heart of the Garden Route where rivers of black water slash through deep gorged mountains to the roaring waves of the Indian Ocean and the submarine brilliance of its depths. Where tiny places, with evocative names, such as Natures Valley and Storms River and Tsitsikamma [clear water] reveal romantic, rocky coves and sun splashed white beaches.
Just inland, separated by huge sand dunes from the sea, exquisite freshwater lakes-provide a haven for water birds fishes and man. Further north where the ribs of the Swartberg [Black mountains] pierce the pale blue sky a panorama unfolds of vast plains stretching to hidden horizons. This is the Great Karoo, burial ground of dinosaurs, home of isolated farmhouses, a region so climatically estranged from the great forests, flower covered mountains and cool sea that it could be part of another continent.
This coastal wonderland of the Southern Cape is an undulating belt of green coastal bush and forest, slashed by cool mountain streams and bordered by jagged seaside cliffs. It extends along the Tsitsikamma Coastal National Park between Nature’s Valley in the west and the mouth of the Groot River.
Hiking trails traversing this rugged coastline explore a wonderland of indigenous ferns, trees and flowers, and provide panoramic mountain top views of dolphins and whales basking in the shimmering waters of the Indian Ocean.
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