From Cape Town, your first stop today is the historic town of Stellenbosch in the picturesque Winelands region, where you’ll find plenty of options for lunch.

Continue for just over an hour through the heart of the Hawequas Mountains to Worcester, with its fine botanical gardens. Here you will join the famous Route 62, one of the most scenic drives in South Africa, that takes you to your accommodation for the night, a charming guesthouse in Montagu.

Montagu Vines
Breakfast

The journey along Route 62 is simply stunning, with several small farming communities to visit on the way. Stop at Calitzdorp to pick up a bottle of the town’s famous port wine, admire its sandstone church and historical buildings or take a dip in the nearby hot springs. Your destination tonight is Oudtshoorn, a great base to explore the scorched Little Karoo region.

Hlangana Lodge
Breakfast

You have a whole day to explore this fascinating corner of South Africa. A visit to the impressive Cango Caves is a must. Here you can join a guided tour through six main magnificent limestone halls, where it is thought groups of Khoekhoe and San people lived thousands of years ago. For the more flexible, there is also an adventure tour, that heads deeper into the cave network through narrow tunnels and passages, with some crawling or belly sliding required!

Consider also visiting one of Oudtshoorn’s working ostrich farms. The birds have been bred in the area for over 160 years for meat, leather and feathers. You’ll find ostrich steak on the menu at many restaurants in town.

Hlangana Lodge
Breakfast

After a leisurely breakfast, it’s back on the road today, though with only 110 kms to cover you have plenty of time for photo stops and exploring.

Leaving Oudtshoorn, drop down through the spectacular Outeniqua Pass to George and the lush coastal section of the Garden Route. Here you have a choice. You can follow the N2 to Knysna, with the ocean on your right and ancient Yellowwood forests to your left, or take the winding Seven Passes Road, which heads back into the hills and crosses seven gorges before dropping into town.

Knysna sits on the edge of large saltwater lagoon. If you arrive soon after midday, you should be in time to join an afternoon cruise across the lagoon to Featherbed Nature Reserve, for stunning views and to learn about the local fauna and flora from your guide.

Waterfront Lodge
Breakfast

Around 30 minutes from Knysna is the upmarket seaside town of Plettenberg Bay, perfect for a day trip to relax on its long sandy beaches and enjoy a leisurely lunch, before walking it off on one of the scenic trails on the Robberg Peninsula, where a colony of fur seals lives and between May and February you may just spot southern right or humpback whales in the ocean waters!

Waterfront Lodge
Breakfast

En route to Port Elizabeth (Gqeberha) a stop at Tsitsikamma National Park comes highly recommended. Hugging the coast around the mouth of the Storms River, the park protects an area of temperate high forest and fynbos (indigenous plants) that cling to rocky cliffs, pounded at their foot by the waves of the Indian Ocean.

Follow a roughly one hour walking trail to get to the 77 metre long Storms River suspension bridge, standing in the middle of which you can’t help but appreciates the might of the sea and natural beauty of Tsitsikamma National Park.

Your Garden Route road trip comes to an end in Port Elizabeth, where you’ll need to return your hire car.