WESTERN CAPE: STARTING OUR TRIP IN THE GORGEOUS GARDEN ROUTE

South Africa is one heck of a travel destination.

Sometimes with great reputations, and at other times not so good.
Quite cheap if you’re a tourist, but expensive for the locals.
Perfect balance between nature and city.

My parents love touring their home and neighbouring countries (Feel free to check out their amazing blogs at lani4travel). Although we have seen a few places growing up, we never really toured the country ourselves while living there as adults.

After moving to the UAE, South African trips were usually for family visits.

Until now…

Since we already saw our families earlier in the year in Namibia, we thought we were off the hook. T and I are absolute bush lovers. But once again, since we’ve been to Etosha earlier, we were up for a change of scenery.

The Western Cape is probably the most known tourist province in SA. We’ve done bits and bobs of it before, but it would be new to both of us for the most part.

The plan was as follows; we would fly to George, pick up a car, explore the garden route, and continue till we reach Cape Town (more or less).

Brenton-on-Sea

During our move to Dubai almost five years ago, T shined like the angel he is once again. While he was busy setting everything up in Dubai, I was fortunate to visit an ex-college and dear friend in Sedgefield. We had an amazing time since she really did go out of her way to show me the surroundings and a good time. Ever since that visit, I’ve wanted to take T there.

Brenton-on-Sea was one of my favourites due to its stunning beach and rock formations. Naturally, this vicinity became our first stop.

The community around that part of the world really takes pride in their towns. It was clean for most of it, and they were always excited to tell you about what we could see and do. Even the benches, tables, and statues were mosaiced to add an extra dash of color.

Our mission was to try and go to the beach every evening, and it paid off. We were blessed with stunning sunsets, dolphins playing in the waves, and even some really windy days making us feel alive.

Brenton-on-Lake

I’m not really sure how we came about staying in Brenton-on-Lake, as opposed to Brenton-on-Sea. This turned out to be one of our favourite accommodations during this trip.

The house was beautiful, spacious, and quiet.
The surroundings super peaceful.
We had an amazing view during day and night.
We had little to no wind, because we were on the opposite side of the hill facing the ocean, but still about a five minutes drive to the beach.
It’s close enough to Knysna if we needed something, but far enough to be out of the hustle and bustle.
There were even some animals who made a visit.
They have a stunning little garden Restaurant and shop at the foot of the hill- Oak Leaf.

Day Trips.

Knysna

Those who have read some of our other blogs would know that weather never bothers us, and we usually welcome rain and cooler temperatures. On the day of our arrival at George and Brenton, they received a record amount of rain.

As always, the rain brought some magic. We received a clean, washed world with bright blue skies the following morning. Jumping out of bed. We headed to Knysna Heads and went for breakfast.

Ile de Pain

Ile de Pain is a Restaurant and Bakery on Thesen Island in Knysna. It was recommended to us by a few people, so we trusted the people and went. It truly was a great start to our culinary journey (spoiler alert: food was a big part of our trip, and I’ll be mentioning quite a few spots and dishes).

Ile de Pain’s piece of “WOW” was their bread we took home for our braai that evening. On top of that, we got to see an owl and her chicks in broad daylight.

Daleen Mathee

Part of our Afrikaans school curriculum was a prescribed book, “Kringe in die Bos” by Daleen Mathee.

Daleen Mathee is a well known and admired author in the Afrikaans language. She has written quite a few books, all taking place in the Knysna forests, with its now endangered elephants and the big trees (Outeniqua Yellowwood).

“Kringe in die Bos” was beautifully and brilliantly written (My Afrikaans teacher shed a tear in every class she finished reading it), but it was never our cup of tea.

During our visit to Knysna, we were privileged to find her grave in these woods as well as “the big” tree. Although her books were never top of our reading lists, we did understand her obsession and love for the forest once we got there.

Tsitsikamma National Park

Before we go on, I would like to mention our best purchase for the trip. We bought a SANParks Wildcard mostly for my Kruger trip, and this paid for itself within my first week in the Kruger. After that, all the parks (and there’s a few) we entered in the Western Cape was a huge bonus.

Tsitsikamma was our quickest visit of all of the parks. We vowed to go back and sleep there for a night or two sometime in our future. It’s a stunning location and dream spot for hikers. We were unfortunately unprepared for a hike, and thus we moved on way too quickly.

Kranshoek National Park

Most people would go on about the Knysna heads’ beauty, and I won’t disagree, but Kranshoek offered us more. The conservation of the fauna and flora and the lack of noise pollution tipped the scale favouring Kranshoek. I probably could have stayed there the whole day, but things to do, places to go.

Old Nick Village & Mungo Mills.

We passed Old Nick Village & Mungo Mills on our way back from Tsitsikamma National Park. By total coincidence, we were there on the Wednesday Market. Perhaps we were tired already, but the village and market weren’t anything special.

I’ve visited one of Mungo Mill’s satellite stores before for a photo challenge and was excited to visit the factory. They weave stunning fabric used for towels, table cloths, linen and more. Although it’s quite pricey, it really is stunning and has a quality touch to it.

At the Mungo Mill factory, we were able to do a self-guided walk tour. Inside it’s deafening (you are provided with earmuffs). Despite the noise, it’s fascinating to see all the machinery and many different yarns woven into fabric.

Bayleaf Cafe

All packed up; we were ready to head to our next stop. First, we had to go back to George, where we landed from Johannesburg.

We had two goals for George:

Stock up on our supplies – this was a bit challenging, since it was Black Friday, and we didn’t realise it.
Find breakfast – T did soooo good on finding us the best spot.

Bayleaf Cafe isn’t close to anything you would expect and a bit out of the way, but a must-visit spot for anyone travelling to or through George.

After our whole trip, we voted Bayleaf as our favourite breakfast spot in SA. The staff were super friendly, the ambience/garden/decor was stunning, and they prepared the food with so much love.

The garden route is one of SA’s gems and would encourage anybody to spend longer there than you think is necessary. We wished we could do a hike, maybe have a cycle. But most of all, we wish we’d spend more time in the National Parks as the natural beauty is just breathtaking.

In our second leg of the trip, we head to Malgas. Most people’s responses were, where’s that, or what’s going on there? There’s nothing better than going somewhere new to figure that out.

I can tell you that we meet up with T’s brother, and I get obsessed with a single tree.