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Published: October 17th 2012
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We left Oudtshoorn quite early and drove back towards the N2 and on towards the beginning of the Garden Route. The Garden Route is a coastal stretch on the Western Cape that is very popular with tourists. There are some beautiful inland forests, amazing coastlines and some attractive beach towns. As we came down from Outdshoorn, towards Paarl, there was some more spectacular scenery, similar to what there had been on our way to Outdshoorn.
We didn't stop at Paarl, but instead continued on towards Wilderness NP. There are a number of lakes in the Wilderness NP, which attract a vast array of wildlife in particular birdlife. We stopped at one of the bird hides to see some of this. There are some walking trails you can do in the park as well, but we decided to head straight to Knysna, where we were staying.
Knysna is a unique seaside town that is set on a lagoon, protected from the ocean by monolithic sandstone heads. From these, heads there are incredible views of the ocean and the lagoon. The town itself is quite tourist oriented and there are a number of great seafood options. We had some lunch by
the lagoon, then checked into our guesthouse. Later, we drove up to the Eastern Head, to admire the views from up there.
The next day, we drove up to the Phantom Forest and walked the 'Big Tree' trail through the forest. This was a 9km loop, which began going downhill fairly steeply, until we turned as we walked alongsied a river. Inevitably we had to finish off the loop by going back up hill. It took us 2 hours to complete. The trees and fauna reminded me a little of the rainforest in how thick it was in places.
We went for some lunch back in Knysna, but the weather took a turn for the worse. We had planned to take a ferry out into the lagoon, but due to the weather, this was cancelled. Instead we drove out to Buffalo's Bay and Brenton-on-Sea to take in some more views of the ocean and the lagoon. By the end, I think we had seen the Knysna lagoon from every vantage point possible.
The next day we left Knysna and continued along the Garden Route. There was no improvement in the weather, but we went down to Nature's
Valley, a beautiful beach town. It sort of had the feel of a ghost town, due to being out of season. We went down to the beach briefly, until it started to lash down rain and we had to make a dash back to the car.
This rain continued as we checked into where we were staying in Tsitsikamma. Tsitsikamma is close to Storm's River and after some lunch at a place called Armagh Lodge, we drove down to Storm's River Mouth. Despite the terrible weather Mum and I walked through the forest and across the gorge via two suspension bridges to view the ocean and Storm's River Mouth. Due to the weather, the ocean was extremely wild and this made the views especially spectacular, in my opinion.
The next morning, Mum and I were due to do a canopy tour of the trees in the forests around Tsitsikamma, but we woke up to torrential downpour. Despite them telling us that we would be given raingear, neither of us fancied spending three hours in such disgusting weather on the top of some trees.
Leaving the Garden Route, my initial reaction was that I felt it may be
a little over-rated, especially after the rest of South Africa, thus far, having really lived up to the bill. But on reflection, I think the combination of the time of year we were there and how unlucky we were with the weather, influenced this reaction and it is definitely somewhere I will have to revisit in a more suitable season.
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