The Garden Route, South Africa's most famous stretch of lush coastline, is a compilation of the Western Cape's greatest hits: the region's best beaches, mountains and forests neatly packaged together. The Cape offers an irresistible combination of First World production values, low prices and an accommodating landscape - Californian beaches, Swiss mountains and French vineyards. For wildlife aficionados, this is the perfect stretch of coastline from which to spot whales, seals and white sharks, to go on long, coastal walks and also to visit its famous game reserves, many of which offer elegant, colonial-style accommodation.
Where to stay in The Garden Route
IN HERMANUS
THE MARINE
(00 27 28 313 1000; fax: 313 0160; www.marine-hermanus.co.za; email: marine@hermanus.co.za). Part of The Collection by Liz McGrath, which includes the Cellars-Hohenort in Cape Town and the Plettenberg. There are 45 rooms, two restaurants and a small courtyard swimming pool. The Marine has a prime position, and is comfortable and upmarket in a mumsy way.
AUBERGE BURGUNDY GUESTHOUSE
(00 27 28 313 1201; www.auberge.co.za; email: auberge@hermanus.co.za). Charming, shuttered building with balconies and a hidden garden. Elegantly furnished and unpretentious, with 17 rooms, including three suites and a penthouse. The Burgundy Restaurant is across the road.
BIRKENHEAD HOUSE
(00 27 15 793 0150; fax: 793 2879; email: info@royalmalewane.com). A surprisingly opulent addition to Hermanus: Birkenhead House has 11 suites, marble bathrooms, eclectic antiques and an infinity pool. Situated in a quiet, out-of-town position on a beachhead with views across Walker Bay. Birkenhead House was featured in the Hot List 2003.
IN KNYSNA
PEZULA RESORT HOTEL
(00 27 044 302 5332; fax: 27 044 384 1658; www.pezularesorthotel.com). One of the most striking things about The Pezula Resort Hotel is the silence: surrounded by indigenous forest and rare Cape coastal fynbos, this environmentally sensitive area is almost primeval, and the landscape is majestic, something the architect and interior designers have captured perfectly. The masculine reception lodge and satellite suites are clad in stone and finished in dark slate; the public areas are theatrical, with double-volume halls, dotted with giant paintings by South African artists, overlooking the outdoor swimming pool. The 76 suites, four to a unit, plus two Presidential Suites, are sleek 'new Africa' hideaways. They hum with climate-control, satellite TV, DVD players and Internet access. The levels of service are hard to find elsewhere on the Garden Route. The facilities are equally impressive: a stunning spa with indoor heated swimming pool, steam room and sauna, eight treatment rooms, outdoor Jacuzzi, juice bar, hair salon and nail bar; an 18-hole championship golf course; immaculate gym, stables and tennis courts. The chef is Geoffrey Murray, also from North Island, and he has created a superb menu that challenges and reinterprets South African cuisine: grilled kudu with wild blueberries and verjuice; smoked snoek with curry oil and lime; Knysna oysters with cucumber, ginger and sake mignonette. Pezula resort was featured in The Hot List 2005. ££££
PHANTOM FOREST ECO RESERVE
(00 27 44 386 0046; www.phantomforest.com; email: phantomforest@mweb.co.za). Ten eco-friendly suites built into the forest, with thatched roofs, rustic terraces and slick, glass-fronted bathrooms. The chef is excellent and facilities include a freshwater pool. £
LAKE PLEASANT HOTEL
(00 27 44 349 2400; fax: 349 2401; www.lakepleasanthotel.com; email: info@lakepleasanthotel.com). Extensively refurbished hotel near Sedgefield with views of Groenvlei (Green Lake) and, unfortunately, the N2 motorway. It has a swimming pool and spa, a cigar bar and a good restaurant.
IN PLETTENBERG BAY
THE PLETTENBERG
(00 27 44 533 2030; fax: 533 2074; www.plettenberg.com; email: plettenberg@pixie.co.za). A couple of notches above its sister hotel - the Marine in Hermanus - both in style and service. Great in-town location above Lookout Rocks and Beach. The annex across the road has a sunny breakfast room and outdoor lap pool.
HUNTER'S COUNTRY HOUSE
(00 27 44 532 7818; fax: 532 7878; www.hunterhotels.com email: res@hunterhotels.com). English-country-style hotel, 10km from Plettenberg Bay, with 23 rooms in garden cottages and suites set around the main house. Inside there are comfy sofas, fresh-cut flowers and a lot of chintz. This makes a peaceful base from which to explore the Garden Route.
TSALA TREETOP LODGE
(00 27 44 532 7818; fax: 532 7878; www.tsala.com; email: res@hunterhotels.com). On the same property as Hunter's Country House, Tsala is a glamorous lodge with 10 suites built in stone, glass and wood with private plunge-pools and views across a forested valley. The décor comprises silk curtains, African art, stand-alone baths and outdoor showers. There is also a sensational dining room.
PLETTENBERG PARK
(00 27 44 533 9067; fax: 533 9092; www.plettenbergpark.co.za; email: info@plettenbergpark.co.za). Private nine-room hotel on a cliff-side within a gated nature reserve, 10 minutes' drive from Plettenberg Bay. £
KURLAND
(00 27 44 534 8082; fax: 534 8699; www.kurland.co.za; email: info@kurland.co.za). Very plush 12-room country house with shady verandahs, antiques and oil paintings. There are polo ponies and tournaments in the grounds. Children are well catered for.
EASTERN CAPE GAME RESERVES
ADDO ELEPHANT NATIONAL PARK
(00 27 42 233 0556; fax: 233 0196; www.addoelephantpark.com). The park continues to expand, with ambitious plans for a 400,000-hectare reserve stretching down to the coast and beyond, incorporating a marine reserve in Algoa Bay.
GORAH ELEPHANT CAMP
(00 27 44 532 7818; fax: 532 7878; www.gorah.com; email: res@hunterhotels.com). The most luxurious accommodation in Addo, on a large private concession. Gorah has 10 permanent tents which are cool, creamy and cavernous, with open-plan bathrooms, polished wood floors and colonial four-poster beds - and an impeccably restored 1850s farmhouse with deep, wraparound verandahs overlooking shady trees and lawns leading down to a waterhole. ££
KWANDWE PRIVATE GAME RESERVE
(00 27 11 809 4300; www.ccafrica.com; email: information@ccafrica.com). New reserve outside the historical university town of Grahamstown with an excellent conservation reputation.
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SHAMWARI GAME RESERVE
(00 27 42 203 1111; www.shamwari.com; email: shamwaribooking@global.co.za). The first private game park in the Eastern Cape continues to thrive and expand.
What to see in The Garden Route
HERMANUS
Ninety minutes' drive south-east of Cape Town lies Hermanus, which was once a poor fishing village, then a wealthy retirement village and is now the whale-watching capital of South Africa. Each season (July to November), southern right whales wallow in Walker Bay, where they are watched by thousands of admirers pacing up and down the windy cliff paths high above the rocky shoreline. It's a tidy industry, with a horn-blowing town crier directing visitors to the best viewing points and information kiosks and a tiny museum on the quayside that highlights the town's now-extinct fishing industry.
KNYSNA VILLAGE
Knysna village has shrugged off its former image as a sleepy-hollow hippy hideout to take a starring role in the development of the Garden Route. Before continuing to Plettenberg Bay, the N2 motorway briefly metamorphoses into Knysna's Main Street. Fortunately, the old town itself - with its wide, tree-lined streets and Victorian houses - has been preserved, and most tourists are directed towards Knysna Quays, a purpose-built brick, steel and cobble waterfront complex with clothes and crafts shops, galleries, bars and restaurants.
BEACHES AROUND KNYSNA
The best options are Buffalo Bay, Wilderness and Victoria Bay, on the N2 towards Mossel Bay, or Noetzie Beach in the opposite direction. Buffalo Bay has a classic, dune-backed beach interrupted by a headland checkered with holiday chalets with hand-painted wooden signs. The beach on the Brenton-on-Sea side of the headland is busy with large families under umbrellas and is serviced by a grocery store and café-bar; but on the other side there is a gorgeous, empty stretch of golden sand that borders the Goukamma Nature Reserve. Wilderness has a good swimming beach and Victoria Bay has a small sandy beach wedged between cliffs and backed by lawns. Noetzie beach, on the way to Plettenberg Bay, is at the end of a 6km dirt road and can only be reached by very steep steps. It is known (although not yet by many) for its castles - architectural follies built as fanciful holiday homes.
PLETTENBERG BAY
It's roughly a 30-minute drive from Noetzie to posh Plettenberg Bay, known as 'Plett' to everyone, including hundreds of Johannesburg's wealthy families who have grand holiday houses there. Like the view, Plett town hasn't changed much: Lookout Beach, the enormous sand spit seen from the hotel, is still the best for surfing and sunbathing, and is the least crowded; the town still bursts into life at 8am every Saturday morning and shuts promptly at 1pm, when everyone heads for the beach; and the surrounding countryside and coastline are still among the most beautiful in the world.
Things to do in The Garden Route
WALKS
Go for a hike at Robberg Nature Reserve, an imposing peninsula 8km south of Plettenberg Bay. It takes about four hours to circumnavigate, along narrow cliff-top paths and down sweeping drifts of powder-fine sand. The rewards are great, with views of Plettenberg Bay and across the open sea. At the base of the cliffs, there are colonies of Cape fur seals and dolphins and whales swim close to shore. It rains all year and storms can well up with very little warning. It is a wild and wonderful place.
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There are also well-established walks and hikes in the Tsitsikamma Coastal National Park, which consists of 80km of coastline, forests and mountains beginning at Nature's Valley, about 65km along the coast from Plettenberg Bay. The most famous hike is the five-day Otter Trail, but there are shorter walks. Nature's Valley itself is a peaceful place to disappear for a day, with a 5km beach and a quiet lagoon at the mouth of the Groot River.
GAME RESERVES
GORAH ELEPHANT CAMP
Gorah Elephant Camp is on a 5,000-hectare private concession within state-owned Addo Elephant Park between Port Elizabeth and Grahamstown. It was opened in 2000 by Ian Hunter of Hunter Hotels, who also owns Hunter's Country House and Tsala Treetop Lodge outside Plettenberg Bay. Addo itself was created in 1931 on 2,237 hectares to save the last 11 elephants in the Eastern Cape and now has a population in excess of 350 on 125,000 hectares.
KWANDWE PRIVATE GAME RESERVE
Kwandwe Private Game Reserve opened in the Great Fish River Valley in the heart of the Eastern Cape in October 2001. The land was left to revert to its natural state and more than 7,000 animals, including buffalo, lion, cheetah, rhino and elephant, were bought and introduced to their new home in a massive translocation exercise. The cost was in the region of $10 million, financed by Carl DeSantis, a Florida-based billionaire working in conjunction with Angus Sholto-Douglas, a South African safari-camp manager.
The landscape here is more diverse than at Gorah, with a combination of dense thicket and open savannah grassland, ridges and rivers. Kwandwe offers time to enjoy the bush and learn about smaller creatures while looking forward to special-guest appearances from lion, leopard, black and white rhino, elephant and buffalo.
OTHER ACTIVITIES
Just about every outdoor activity is catered for on the Garden Route, from golf to kayaking, mountain biking to horse riding, canoeing to bungy jumping, motor glider flights and rides on the Outenique Choo Choo steam train between George and Knysna. In addition, there are hikes and nature walks in the various nature reserves, plus whale- and white-shark-watching.
How to get to The Garden Route
AIRPORT
There are international airports at Cape Town and at Port Elizabeth, both of which are perfectly placed for the Garden Route.
AIRLINES FROM THE UK
South African Airways (0870 747 1111; www.flysaa.com) flies daily from Heathrow to Cape Town and Port Elizabeth. British Airways (0845 773 3377;
www.british-airways.com) flies daily from Heathrow to Cape Town.
The best way to get around The Garden Route
Car hire companies include Avis (0870 606 0100); Europcar (0870 607 5000) and Hertz (0870 599 6699).
Tourist information for The Garden Route
Contact South African Tourism (0870 155 0044)