5-day 

 

Luxury Garden Route Tour

 

Discover and experience the best of South Africa’s picturesque Garden Route during a 5-day round-trip from Cape Town where you will stay at luxury accommodation offering fine cuisine and personalized service, catering to the needs of the discerning traveler. Visit the Addo Elephant National Park where you can get close to elephants, big cats like lion, buffalo, black rhino, hyena, a variety of antelope and in the marine section, great white sharks and southern right whales, as this is one of the few reserves in the world housing the Big 7. Hike through lush forests and canoe on picture-perfect water. Unwind and soak in the sun on soft, sandy beaches for an unforgettable holiday.

 

     Itinerary:

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Day 1: After pickup between 7 and 8 am from your Cape Town or Stellenbosch hotel, (see recommended list), you’ll travel in a comfortable vehicle to our first stop at Spier Wine Estate where we will have a taste of premium wine ranges. Completing this appetizer we drive for approximately five hours to the town of Mossel Bay where we visit the Bartolomeu Dias museum complex to see the famous 500 year old Post Office Tree, the life-size replica of the Dias Caravel, the Shell Museum & Aquarium and Ethno-Botanical Garden. Now off to the town of Wilderness, where you will overnight at the 5-star Views Boutique Hotel & Spa. The lounge is the perfect place to laze or sip sundowners, spot dolphins & whales or watch spectacular sunsets. Also winner of the Les Nouvelle Esthetiques Award for Best Boutique Spa.

 

Day 2: After breakfast you will be taken to the Kaaimans River Gorge Reserve, located between the towns of George and Wilderness. The Kaaimans Waterfall is accessible by rowing boat or canoe. It is approximately a ten-minute row to get to the waterfall. The lead up to the waterfall is through a narrow and extremely high Kloof. It is perhaps 5 metres across and 70 metres high and only 150 metres long., where we will paddle on a calm river that wind through lush forests and mountains with canoes and stand the chance to see the brilliantly coloured Knysna Loerie or one of the five Kingfisher species. A drive through Knysna take you to the town of Plettenberg Bay, where you can take a boat ride for a “Dolphin Encounters” excursion of 1,5 to 2 hours at Ocean Blue Adventures. You go to the world’s highest bungee jump at Bloukrans Bridge. Standing 709 feet (216 meters) above the Bloukrans River, the arch bridge is the ideal place to bungee jump. This is an optional activity (own expense), and you are free to watch the bungee jumpers take the plunge. Alternatively you can do one of the optional activities at Stormsriver Adventures: a Tsitsikama Woodcutters Journey or a Tsitsikama Canopy Tour. A short drive takes us to the ±1000-year-old Big Tree in the Tsitsikama forest. From here we go to overnight at the 5-star Dio Dell Amore Guest House: experience the opulence and charm of Tuscan life along the shores of the Kabeljauws River Mouth in Jeffrey’s Bay. Eight stylish rooms have each been individually decorated and furnished with everything you’ll need for a comfortable and relaxing stay.

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​Day 3: You have an early morning start for a day trip to Addo Elephant National Park, the third largest national park in South Africa. Home to elephants, lions, buffalo, black rhino, spotted hyena, leopard, a variety of antelope and zebra species, this park host the largest remaining population of wild elephants on the planet. You’ll enjoy a safari tour with knowledgeable park Guides and get the opportunity to see buffalo and other big animals. We via Jeffrey’s Bay on our return in the afternoon to try surfing in one of the world's most famous surf spots, or just relax on the beach.  Overnight is at the 5-star Dio Dell Amore Guest House: experience the opulence and charm of Tuscan life along the shores of the Kabeljauws River Mouth in Jeffrey’s Bay.

 

Day 4: After breakfast, you’ll travel approximately four hours on the famous Route 62 to get to Oudtshoorn for a Heritage Tour at the Cango Caves. Located in a limestone ridge parallel to the picturesque Swartberg Mountains, the caves include over 2.5 miles (4 km) of drip stone caverns with vast halls and towering formations of stalactites and stalagmites. You’ll walk through some of this subterranean wonderland with your guide on a 2-hour tour of the caves. From here we go to an Ostrich Farm where the largest fowl in the world can be studied. We drive to our overnight farm at De Zeekoe, which is surrounded by the Swartberg and Outeniqua mountains, and one of the world’s 17 “hot spots” with 3 overlapping flower zones, which is located between the lush green Garden Route and the wide-open spaces of the Klein (Little) Karoo with the Outeniqua and Swartberg mountain ranges as backdrop. Here you can take part in a Wild meerkat tour which offers you the unique opportunity to see these animals that are part of the shy 5 in their natural environment. Meerkats are part of the so-called Shy 5 which also includes the bat-eared fox, the aardvark, porcupine and aardwolf. We spend the night at the 4-star De Zeekoe outside Oudtshoorn.

 

Day 5: After you chose to do more of the activities (optional) on this farm after breakfast, we return to Cape Town along Route 62, the world's longest wine route. You’ll pass through breath-taking scenery and have plenty of rest stops. Also to be visited is Ronnie's Sex Shop which had visitors from all over the world, judging by the graffiti on its wall. There will be more stops for wine tasting before reaching Cape Town to end your tour.