Worth getting out of bed for
Highlights the best Garden Route & Winelands has to offer, from art and culture to fun-packed activities; we've even found the most inspiring place to enjoy the views from.
- Viewpoint
- If you’re driving through the winelands round Stellenbosch, the R45 takes you over the Franschhoek Pass and provides spectacular vineyard and mountain views. Travelling along the N2, particularly after Mossel Bay, also gives you one stunning vista after another: the Four Vlies (lakes) in Wilderness, the Heads at Knysna and the mountain peaks behind Plett (as locals refer to Plettenberg Bay) are all beautiful.
- Arts and culture
- Despite having been inhabited since pre-historic times, the Garden Route is far richer in plant and animal life than in cultural relics. There are a handful of museums and thousands of Stone Age artefacts from caves such as the Majies River Cave at Keurboomstrand, but natural splendour’s the thing to admire here. The inspiring landscape around Knysna and Plett has drawn many craftsmen and artists in to settle, and there are whole hamlets of artisan workshops and outlets (see ‘shopping’, below) displaying the fruits of their looms, pottery wheels and palettes.
- Something for nothing
- Go down to Keurboomstrand one evening and pick fresh oysters off the rocks under the moonlight. This will be of course be far more enjoyable if you bring along an oyster shucker, some lemons, something to sit on and a few bits of basic picnic paraphernalia. From July until the end of the year, you can spot whales and dolphins from the beaches around Plett, including Robberg and Hobie, as well as at Hermanus to the west.
- Shopping
- If you’re a shopaholic, you’ve come to the wrong place. Knysna’s shops are too touristy, and Wilderness is too sleepy. There are some browsable boutiques in Plett, but everything’s fairly pricey. Look out for interesting pottery and fabrics instead: Global Village on Piesang Valley Road (+27 (0)44 533 5150) exhibits and sells interesting arts and crafts, and there’s a little wholefood café selling smoothies; Old Nick Village has several little shops selling pottery and furniture; the hand-woven fabrics are lovely (+27 (0)44 533 1395; www.oldnickvillage.co.za). Pick up crisp Western Cape chardonnays or full-bodied cabernets in one of the wineries at Stellenbosch, Franschhoek or Paarl; try Thelema Mountain Vineyards (www.thelema.co.za) or Grande Provence (www.grandeprovence.co.za). Bramon Wine Estate in the Crags is a pioneering vineyard in the Plettenberg Bay area, and has a good restaurant too (+27 (0)82 897 3753; www.bramonwines.co.za).
- Daytripper
- Head out to the town of Oudtshoorn, 30 minutes from Wilderness, and visit the Cango Wildlife Ranch and Cheetah Conservation Foundation (+24 (0)44 272 5593; www.cango.co.za), which specialises in breeding endangered species, including cheetahs, white tigers, lemurs and white lions. If you don’t mind ‘wetting your pants’, you can also cage-dive with crocs. Oudtshoorn is also home to a sprawling underground cave system (www.cangocaves.co.za); crawl through Lumbago Alley, the Tunnel of Love and the Devil’s Post Box with an adventure guide and you’ll soon find out whether you’re claustrophobic or not.
- Best beach
- Nature’s Valley, to the east of Plettenberg Bay, has a huge, jaw-droppingly gorgeous stretch of sand, usually deserted. Robberg Beach is also very long, but can be crowded in high season. Near Wilderness, Goukamma Beach is a protected area within a nature reserve, and a twitcher’s paradise; you might want a 4x4 to get down there.
- Perfect Picnic
- See ‘something for nothing’, above. If you like the sound of this but can’t be bothered to find your own oysters, you can buy fresh ones in Plettenberg Bay or Knysna, both renowned for their mollusc. Accompany with a bottle of Graham Beck Brut Rosé and watch the sun sink behind the mountains on Keurbooms beach. If you want someone else to pour the drinks, nip into Ristorante Enrico (+27 (0)44 535 9818) on the main beach.
- Children
- Take your little monkeys to the Monkeyland Primate Sanctuary in Plettenberg Bay (+27 (0)44 534 8906; www.monkeyland.co.za), for a guided foot safari to spot furry critters roaming free in mature indigenous forest. Also nearby is Birds of Eden in the Crags (www.birdsofeden.co.za), a vast free-flight forest aviary that does much the same thing for our feathered friends, complete with canopy walks and meet-the-birds tours.
- Activities
- Fling yourself earthward from a height of 216 metres on the world’s highest bungee jump, off the single-span Bloukraanz Bridge, a 20-minute drive from Plettenberg Bay, in Nature’s Valley (+27 (0)42 281 1458). Do the same from higher up with a 35-second free-fall sky-dive (+27 (0)82 905 7440; www.skydiveplett.com) or lower down on a scuba dive from Kynsna at Heads Adventure Centre (+27 (0)44 384 0831; www.headsadventure.co.za). Ocean Blue Adventures in Plettenberg Bay (+27 (0)44 533 4897; www.oceanadventures.co.za) will get you up close and personal with whales, dolphins and seals in the ocean, or kayaking into the Keurbooms river nature reserve. Canter along a beach in the moonlight at Mossel Bay (and possibly spot a great white shark at the same time) or explore the Goukamma Nature Reserve on horseback with Garden Route Equestrian Adventure Tours (+27 (0)82 835 9110; www.great.co.za). Hit the surf at Plett or Mossel Bay.
- And...
- There are some great golf clubs in these parts, from the Stellenbosch Golf Club (www.stellenboschgolfclub.com) near Cape Town to the dramatic coastal course at Pezula.
Diary
December–April Plettenberg Bay’s polo season, with the most intense games coinciding with Christmas and Easter. Held on the beautiful private polo estate of Kurland in the Crags, the Kurland International Polo Test is the highlight of the season. July Knysna Oyster Festival in the first half of the month celebrates the unctuous bivalve with a variety of seemingly unrelated running, cycling and driving events, as well as tastings and live music (www.oysterfestival.co.za). July–December Whale-watching season all along the coast. Hermanus and Robberg Bay are among the best places to see them.
