Garden Route
| country: | South Africa |
| location: | Garden Route, Western Cape, Eastern Cape |
| departures: | This trip can be arranged at any time to suit you and adapted to your requirements as necessary |
| price: | From £1225 (12 days) excluding flights. In order for us to put together a detailed response it would be very helpful if you could provide full details in your enquiry as listed below |
read 2 travellers reviews
the amazing things you'll be doing
Cape Town is an attractive cosmopolitan city, rimmed by Atlantic Ocean beaches, and with Table Mountain as its backdrop. It is a vibrant city, its centre based on old colonial Dutch and English architecture with a touch of Art Deco thrown in for good measure. There are good restaurants, bars, theatre, live music venues, museums, art galleries and all the things you would expect in a wealthy European-styled town. You can easily spend 3 days exploring Cape Town's Waterfront, taking a cable car up Table Mountain, visiting Robben Island, taking a city tour including the Cape Malay quarter, as well as some of the townships.
Then drive along the Cape Peninsula to Cape Point on the Cape of Good Hope. Then you still have to explore the beautiful winelands to taste the fruits of the vines and enjoy the charm and hospitality of this unique area, and try whale watching near Hermanus.
Heading east, Outdshoorn is situated in the Klein Karoo, 55 km inland from the coast. The town is inextricably intertwined with the growth of the ostrich-feather industry. It also has one of the world's great natural wonders, the Cango Caves - limestone formations in a wide variety of natural colours. Stay at a homestay to get a local view of life in this region.
Reaching the coast of the Garden Route at Wilderness, you carry on along this beautiful stretch of coastline until you reach the Plettenberg Bay/Tsitsikamma region. The Park incorporates 80 km of rocky coastline with spectacular sea and landscapes, a remote mountainous region with secluded valleys covered in mountain fynbos and temperate high forests with deep river gorges leading down to the sea. There are lots of activities you can enjoy in this region, from gentle hikes, to time on excellent beaches, to more adventurous things such as a tree canopy tour, which involves traversing from one platform to another along a steel cable suspended up to 30m above the forest floor...!
Leaving the Garden Route, we head to Port Elizabeth (PE), the Friendly City, now becoming known also as Nelson Mandela Bay. The city has excellent beaches and other seafront attractions, and a major highlight of the trip is the "real city tour" here. The positive feedback from clients stems from contact with local people at the community projects we visit, such as local schools and artists studios.
A trip to South Africa would not be complete without time for some wildlife viewing, and this is a perfect end to this trip. Firstly Addo Elephant Park, a huge reserve only about 45 minutes from PE, which, as the name suggests, is excellent for high chances of seeing lots of elephants. The Park was established in 1931 to protect the last 11 wild elephants from extermination. Today more than 350 elephants roam through an area that is so diverse that no matter how many times you experience it, its magic will never fail to captivate you. The park also offers excellent viewing of black rhino, Cape buffalo and, occasionally, leopard, as well as a host of other large and small mammals and over 400 species of birds in the greater park area. From September 2003 it will have the Big 5 (elephant, rhino, leopard, lion and buffalo), once the lions are brought into the area.
Afterwards we head for the private reserve of Shamwari, which has had the Big 5 for some time now, and in its 22,000 hectares you stand a good chance of spotting lots of different wildlife on the (very) early morning and evening game drives in the reserve's open safari vehicles with one of the experienced rangers. It is also home to a branch of the Born Free Foundation which you can visit, and a cultural village called Kaya Lendaba, where you can enjoy some traditional African dance.
Then drive along the Cape Peninsula to Cape Point on the Cape of Good Hope. Then you still have to explore the beautiful winelands to taste the fruits of the vines and enjoy the charm and hospitality of this unique area, and try whale watching near Hermanus.
Heading east, Outdshoorn is situated in the Klein Karoo, 55 km inland from the coast. The town is inextricably intertwined with the growth of the ostrich-feather industry. It also has one of the world's great natural wonders, the Cango Caves - limestone formations in a wide variety of natural colours. Stay at a homestay to get a local view of life in this region.
Reaching the coast of the Garden Route at Wilderness, you carry on along this beautiful stretch of coastline until you reach the Plettenberg Bay/Tsitsikamma region. The Park incorporates 80 km of rocky coastline with spectacular sea and landscapes, a remote mountainous region with secluded valleys covered in mountain fynbos and temperate high forests with deep river gorges leading down to the sea. There are lots of activities you can enjoy in this region, from gentle hikes, to time on excellent beaches, to more adventurous things such as a tree canopy tour, which involves traversing from one platform to another along a steel cable suspended up to 30m above the forest floor...!
Leaving the Garden Route, we head to Port Elizabeth (PE), the Friendly City, now becoming known also as Nelson Mandela Bay. The city has excellent beaches and other seafront attractions, and a major highlight of the trip is the "real city tour" here. The positive feedback from clients stems from contact with local people at the community projects we visit, such as local schools and artists studios.
A trip to South Africa would not be complete without time for some wildlife viewing, and this is a perfect end to this trip. Firstly Addo Elephant Park, a huge reserve only about 45 minutes from PE, which, as the name suggests, is excellent for high chances of seeing lots of elephants. The Park was established in 1931 to protect the last 11 wild elephants from extermination. Today more than 350 elephants roam through an area that is so diverse that no matter how many times you experience it, its magic will never fail to captivate you. The park also offers excellent viewing of black rhino, Cape buffalo and, occasionally, leopard, as well as a host of other large and small mammals and over 400 species of birds in the greater park area. From September 2003 it will have the Big 5 (elephant, rhino, leopard, lion and buffalo), once the lions are brought into the area.
Afterwards we head for the private reserve of Shamwari, which has had the Big 5 for some time now, and in its 22,000 hectares you stand a good chance of spotting lots of different wildlife on the (very) early morning and evening game drives in the reserve's open safari vehicles with one of the experienced rangers. It is also home to a branch of the Born Free Foundation which you can visit, and a cultural village called Kaya Lendaba, where you can enjoy some traditional African dance.
travellers' tales
The Drakensberg mountains and Didima camp at Cathedral Peak provided a magical start to the holiday, with stunning scenery, fantastic hiking and lovely accommodation; we could easily have stayed much longer there. (more)
tailor made holidays
This trip can be tailormade to create a unique holiday for your individual requirements by travel experts with intimate knowledge of the destination. It is a more luxurious trip that will suit those who enjoy immersing themselves in new cultures and environments before relaxing in comfort. As this trip can be tailormade it would be helpful if you could you provide the following information: rough budget per person (stating with or without flights), your address and postcode, contact phone number, preferred date of travel, length of trip, number of passengers, preferred countries and areas within those countries, specific interests & type of accommodation.highly commended
This tourism business was Highly Commended in our 2007 Virgin Holidays Responsible Tourism Awards - the largest awards of their kind in the world, and organised by responsibletravel.com in association with The Times, World Travel Market and Geographical Magazine, of the Royal Geographical Society.Since 2004, the Awards has recognised individuals, companies and organisations in travel making a big commitment to the culture and economies of local communities and helping to conserve biodiversity.
how this holiday makes a difference
|
Homestay: Hazel (a retired teacher) and 11 other multi-ethnic, well-educated ladies joined together to form this homestay opportunity. These are homes not hotels, so you get an insight into what it is like to stay with a local, non-white family, something which is not commonly possible in South Africa. These families were all discriminated against under apartheid, and it is only by Hazel's strong will that this homestay project has got off the ground at all, as the families still find that they can not compete in general with the white-owned guest houses.
Treetop canopy tour: If you decide to take a Treetop Canopy Tour you will be directly helping a great community poverty relief project. Environmental education excursions are conducted regularly and include 1000 children annually from local communities. The company recently adopted the local Primary School and makes a significant contribution to the school feeding scheme by providing meals for 140 children. A proposed community-owned Craft Centre is major project which is also receiving support. It is hoped that 200 local people will become self-employed through this initiative. Port Elizabeth city tour: The Calabash Trust is a poverty alleviation and upliftment fund aimed at providing assistance to projects in disadvantaged areas through tourism. Funds from the city tour go directly to this trust, which in turn helps people in the townships. The help is given through training, sponsoring children's education, and bringing in equipment needed by the communities eg for schools, clinics etc. Addo: In Addo we use the community field guides who were taken from the local township and trained up by the government. We are one of the few operators promoting this community scheme, which could have a significant impact if it was patronised more widely. The guides are well-trained and very enthusiastic. Shamwari: To ensure the lasting sustainability of the reserve as an ecosystem rich in biodiversity, the ecology department strives to protect and where necessary to improve the environment. The wildlife department has received the Global Nature Fund Award for Best Conservation Practice. The anti-poaching unit boasts highly trained personnel. A local township, Alicedale, is going to be more closely involved with the reserve in the coming years, thus giving the inhabitants a means to an income from the reserve. Flights are automatically carbon offset through The Travel Forest, which plants 10 indigenous trees on your behalf (currently in northern Tanzania). Whilst the primary motivation for planting the trees is to offset carbon emissions, the project also works as a poverty alleviation and environmental improvement scheme. |
Tourism can be good and bad for destinations & local people. We carefully screen every holiday against our criteria for responsible travel. 'Look behind the brochure' to find how each holiday makes a difference (see left). We don't claim to be perfect - there is no global accreditation - but we've led the way since 2001 and screened 1000's of holidays. We invite every traveller to write a review about their experiences and responsible tourism. This valuable feedback is sent to the people who run the holidays. We keep a very close eye on it and take off holidays that don't live up to our standards. |