Planning a trip along The Garden Route in South Africa is no mean feat.<\/p>\r\n
Spanning a whopping 300km from Mossel Bay in the Western Cape of South Africa to the Storms River in the Eastern Cape, this diverse, scenic and primitive stretch of coastline offers so much to explore that it’s hard to prioritise and whittle down where to stop off and where to miss – especially if you only have a few days to do it!<\/p>\r\n
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When my Mum, sister and I visited Cape Town earlier this year, we put aside 5\/6 days to uncover The Garden Route and The Winelands (we’ll come to this in another post), which gave us approximately 3 nights and 3 days to squeeze in as much as we possibly could along the coastline.<\/p>\r\n
Please note: where we chose to visit was by no means extensive and there are loadssss of other places you can stop off along The Garden Route. This itinerary is based on the places we decided we wanted to visit most.<\/p>\r\n
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Cape Town – Knysna: approx. 330 miles\/8 hours<\/p>\r\n
Accommodation: Bayview Studio<\/a><\/p>\r\n
Brace yourself – this is a longggg drive. The stretch of road running from Cape Town to Knysna is very flat, very straight and very boring. However, it is easy and has some great spots to stop off at along the way. About 3 hours into the journey we found a lovely lunch spot in Swellendam called Old Gaol<\/a>, which had a great outdoor seating area and served up delicious fresh roosterkoekes (traditional South African open sandwiches).\u00a0<\/p>\r\n
We chose to go with a more expensive yet, quieter 1 1\/2 hour trip on a catamaran. We booked our trip through Featherbed<\/a>, who cover four different boat experiences and bought our tickets the morning of our trip at their kiosk opposite the main car park (it’s hard to miss).<\/p>\r\n
Knysna – Tsitsikamma National Park: approx. 57 miles\/1 hour 30 mins<\/p>\r\n
Accommodation: Love Earth Farm<\/a><\/p>\r\n
Tsitsikamma National Park to Oudtshoorn: approx. 132 miles\/4 hours 15 mins<\/p>\r\n
Accommodation: Africa Inn – Chalet 1\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\r\n
The main thing to do in Oudtshoorn is to visit an ostrich farm. Due to the area’s dry climate, it is the perfect place to rear ostriches so is covered in farms harvesting feathers, eggs and meat. When we visited, we went to Highgate Ostrich Farm<\/a> (187 rand, approx. \u00a39.80) as it was rated highly on TripAdvisor. We were given a 1 hour 15 minute tour of the farm and workshop by a lovely, professional guide.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n
The highlight of our time in Oudtshoorn was the Air BnB we stayed in (THAT VIEW) and our dinner at Nostalgie<\/a>, which I would highly recommend.<\/p>\r\n
From Oudtshoorn we drove to Robertson where our winelands experience began (stay tuned)…<\/p>\r\n