The South Coast and Garden Route
East from Cape Town, the coastal area, known as the Overberg, includes attractive resort towns such as Somerset West and Hermanus, probably the best place in South Africa for whale watching; Cape Agulhas, the less than inspirational cape which is actually the southerly tip of Africa; the wreck-strewn cliffs around Arniston; and Elim, a 19-century Mission village whose principal profession is still growing and drying flowers. Swellendam, 215km (130 miles) from Cape Town, is a charming Cape-Dutch village, rich in fine old buildings, several of which make up the excellent Drostdy Museum.
From here onwards, the south coast becomes known as The Garden Route, because of the wealth of forests that used to line the coast. There are a couple of areas of hardwood forest left, but even with so much development this is a wonderful area for holidays, with excellent beaches, good swimming and plenty of activities on offer.
Mossel Bay was one of the first harbours visited by European sailors and the town now has an excellent museum charting the maritime history of the coast. Wilderness is a pretty little resort sandwiched between the dunes and the reedy lakes of the Wilderness Natural Reserve, an excellent place for birding and canoeing. Knysna is a comfortable tourist town situated between the lush inland Knysna forests and the horseshoe-shaped Knysna Lagoon. It has several interesting small museums and a nearby game farm. South Africa’s trendiest resort, Plettenberg Bay, has magnificent beaches, the Robberg Nature Reserve, where you can usually see seals and dolphins and Monkeyland, a sanctuary dedicated to primates of all sorts.
An equally beautiful, but startlingly different route, called the ‘inland route’, runs parallel to the coast, on the far side of the mountains. This leaves Cape Town via the Winelands, continuing through market gardening towns, such as Ashton, Robertson and Montagu, well-known for wine and olives, into the Little Karoo, the scrubby extension of the Great Karoo Desert. Most people choose a mix of the two routes: crossing the Outeniqua and Swartberg Mountains over a series of dramatically beautiful switchback passes, of which the most beautiful is undoubtedly the Swartberg Pass to Prince Alfred; and the more common Outeniqua Pass from George to Oudtshoorn, famous for its ostrich farms as well as the Kango Caves.
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