South Africa

[Louise2004]

We've booked our flights for South Africa next summer, staying for two weeks at the beginning of June (just missing the arrival of the footballers!). We plan to start in Cape Town then drive along the Garden Route and head inland to Port Elizabeth. Now we need to come up with a planned route and book accommodation as some hotels have already closed their bookings until the football schedule is confirmed and we're not sure about leaving it all to the last minute...

I'd be really grateful for any tips and suggestions on where to go, what to do, accommodation etc. Also, it would be good to know roughly how long we should stay in each place, taking into account any driving time as well as the activities on offer in that area (for example, starting with Cape Town - one or two nights?).

To give you a bit of background, our ds will be 10 years old and is an excellent traveller, and we prefer active holidays (both culturally and sporty, particularly water sports). We don't want to do any safari trips as we already got "safari'd out" (!) in Kenya a couple of years ago.

We've had a look in a guide book and online and have found some great ideas but any local info from anyone who lives there or who has visited there recently would be great.

Thanks!

Sounds like a lovely holiday. I'm from South Africa and know some bits of the garden route better than others so might be a bit biased! Cape Town in an amazing place with lots of different things to do so would recommend at least a few days there. Climbing up Lion's head takes a few hours but amazing views. Cape Point is beautiful and you can drive round the entire peninsula through some small villages - so would probably take a day or so. Depending on how active or adventurous you are, climbing Table Mountain is relatively easy and very rewarding experience. There is some lovely beaches both around Cape Town itself ie Clifton and Camps Bay as well as on the other side of the bay - Blouberg with the traditional view of Table Mountain. I could happily spend 2 weeks in Cape Town alone but then I'm biased and would include wine tasting and shopping!

I spent my childhood holidays in a tiny place called Buffelsbaai - about 20km outside Knysna. It is one of the best beaches on the garden route and Knysna has a beautiful estuary and caters well for tourists. Good hotels, good watersports facilities. The drive between Cape Town and Knysna is approx 5hrs - depending how frequently you stop and how fast you drive. Traffic can be an issue for short bits only ie around Cape Town and George.

Plettenberg is lovely too, about an 40mins drive from Knysna and the Jeffreys is known for surfing. Beautiful scenery all along the garden route makes driving a pleasure.

I don't know much about hotels. Hope you have a great holiday.

This is great information, thanks.

I read about Lion's Head and that looks like a good climb but I'm not sure we'd be up to the Table Mountain climb so I think we'll take the cable car for that one! Wine tasting is definitely on the list, along with some good coastal and inland drives (some of them look to be quite spectacular!).

I'll look up Buffelsbaai too as we'll be on the Knysna road. Thanks for the drive times/distances and note about the traffic - that helps planning on how long we'll need to stay in places and generally getting around.

If you think of anything else, please let me know. We're all very much looking forward to the trip as none of us have been to SA yet... I can't wait!