The stretch of 280 km from Heidelberg to the Storms River Mouth is known as the ‘Garden Route of South Africa’. The area was once a vast African forest, the remnants of which can be found around Knysna and in the Tsitsikamma National Park at the Storms River Mouth.
The Garden Route is heaven – tangled forests and deep river gorges fronting lovely long white beaches or craggy headlands. The southern right whales have gone back to Antarctica for the summer, but there are dolphins aplenty, and you may spot some humpbacks or even Bryde’s whales, either from shore or on a boat trip.
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You could do an escorted hike along the coast, either on the beaches near Mossel Bay, through the wetlands between Wilderness and Knysna, or along the spectacular rocky coastline of the Tsitsikamma National Park. It was at Mossel Bay in 1488 that the first Portuguese sailors, captained by Bartholomew Dias, set foot on South African soil. The ancient Post Office Tree, where for centuries mariners left messages for passing ships, still stands in the town.
Knysna has a unique beauty, a beautiful place, with a vast lagoon gated to the ocean by steep promontories known as the Heads, a surrounding natural forest and local game reserve. It’s a charming and trendy town, offering coffee shops, craft galleries, street traders and oyster restaurants – and a spectacularly indulgent annual oyster festival. The town’s forest, formerly a magnificent woodland and home to Khoikhoi clans and herds of elephants, is still lovely, with tall indigenous trees set among streams flowing to the sea.
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On the eastern edge of the Garden Route is the Tsitsikamma National Park, a place of forest, fynbos, rivers and the Storms River Mouth, a five-kilometer estuary stretching into spectacularly wild ocean. The park conserves inter-tidal life, reef and deep-sea fish, including dolphins and porpoises, and a red data species of bird, the African black oyster catcher.
The Storm’s River Mouth is also the starting point for South Africa’s most popular hiking route, the Otter Trail. If you’re looking for more than sun, sand and sea, you could do a tree-top canopy tour, brave the highest bungy jump in the world, mountain bike or hike in the fabulous Harkerville Forest, abseil a waterfall into the mysterious Kaaimans River, take a gentle cruise or paddle up the beautiful, forest-fringed, cola-dark Keurbooms River, or explore the magnificent wetlands of the Wilderness National Park.
For adrenalin freaks, a highlight of the region is the Bloukrans River bridge, which offers one of the highest professionally supervised bungee jumps in the world – a long and fast 216-metre drop.
Experience the natural beauty of the Garden Route. Visit & stay a while. Plan your experience at http://www.gardenroutemeander.co.za
Source: Media Club South Africa
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