Journey through South Africa’s scenic Garden Route on this unforgettable tour from Cape Town, where coastal beauty, lush forests, and charming towns come together to create an extraordinary adventure. Stretching along the country’s southern coast, the Garden Route is renowned for its diverse landscapes, dramatic cliffs, and vibrant wildlife, offering an ideal blend of relaxation and exploration.
Our Garden Route Tours are designed to your individual needs and time limits. The actual Garden Route is approximately 450 km from Cape Town. This is between Mossel Bay in the South and Tsitsikamma in the North.
Apart from the sights within the above area, there are also a number of attractions that can be added on route to or from the Garden Route. These include Cape Agulhas, Hermanus, Route 62 and Big 5 Safaris near Port Elizabeth.
Therefore, we suggest a minimum of three days to get some value. Four or more days are recommended.
A Garden Route Tour can be designed to start and end in Cape Town, Port Elizabeth or George.
My suggestion is to let us know your interests and time available and let me put a route together for you.
Below are some of the highlights.
Hanging bridge at Storms River, Tsitsikamma
Garden Route tag is a misnomer. If you're expecting a horticultural holiday with a string of designer gardens to inspect, seed catalogues in hand, you're going to feel short-changed. This region of South Africa is so-called because the densely vegetated stretch of stunning Western Cape coastline, rich in diverse natural beauty, contrasts so sharply to the country's arid interior.
It comprises 200km of indigenous temperate forest, pine plantations and thick fragrant bush known as "fynbos", beneath the Tsitsikamma and Outeniqua mountains, running alongside rocky coves and glorious sandy beaches. A few lakes, lagoons, gorges and mountain passes are then tossed into this scenic salad for extra garnish. Tourist development, logging and population growth may have taken their toll on the forest and fynbos, but the Garden Route remains a breathtakingly beautiful natural playground.
The Independant
Route 62 is a tourist route in South Africa that meanders between Cape Town, Oudtshoorn, the Garden Route, and Port Elizabeth, offering the scenic alternative to the N2 highway.
Activities along Route 62 include wine tours, safari drives, tribal art, cultural tours, museums, hiking, mountain climbing, 4x4 routes, canoeing, horse riding, ostrich riding, fishing, caving, and even Skydiving.
Oudtshoorn, the "Ostrich capital of the world", is a town in the Western Cape province of South Africa. With approximately 60,000 inhabitants, it is the largest town in the Little Karoo region. The town's economy is primarily reliant on the ostrich farming and tourism industries. Oudtshoorn is home to the world's largest ostrich population, with a number of specialized ostrich breeding farms, such as the Safari Show Farm and the Highgate Ostrich Show Farm.
Ostrich having a look at us
Cango Caves - The Congo Caves are located in Precambrian limestones at the foothills of the Swartberg range near the town of Oudtshoorn, in the Western Cape Province of South Africa. The principal cave is one of the country's finest, best known, and most popular tourist caves, and attracts many visitors from overseas. Although the extensive system of tunnels and chambers go on for over four kilometres, only about a quarter of this is open to visitors, who may proceed into the cave only in groups supervised by a guide.
Knysna. The town is primarily built on the northern shore of a large warm-water estuary, known as the Knysna Lagoon, which is fed by the Knysna River. The estuary opens to the ocean after passing between two large headlands. These are popularly known as "The Heads", and have become infamous due to the loss of boats and fishermen passing through their treacherous and unpredictable waters. Near them are geological formations, known locally as The Map Stones. To the north of Knysna, Afro-Montane or temperate rainforest covers the hilly terrain for 20 km until changing to fynbos or macchia high up in the Outeniqua Mountains.
Plettenberg Bay. Long before Jan van Riebeeck landed at the Cape, Portuguese explorers charted the bay in the 15th and 16th centuries, the first being Bartholomew Dias in 1487. Ninety years later Manuel da Perestrello aptly called it Bahia Formosa or the Beautiful Bay.
Tsitsikamma Forests is a coastal reserve well known for its indigenous forests, dramatic coastline, and the Otter Trail. On 6 March 2009 it was amalgamated with the Wilderness National Park and various other areas of land to form the Garden Route National Park.
