Escape the crowds and opt for one of these alternative adventures to South Africa’s popular Garden Route, featuring oceanside boltholes, stunning seascapes and wonderful wildlife, writes Simon Parker
Four hours east of Cape Town, the Garden Route begins to carve its way around ragged inlets, past lustrous lagoons, and through indigenous forests. It’s a land of sweeping wildflower meadows, vast beaches and sprawling vineyards, bursting with luscious grapes.
Active travellers with a sense of adventure can take on kayaking expeditions in the Tsitsikamma National Park, or the multi-day coastal hike, the 40km Otter Trail. Others, in search of a more laidback sojourn, might opt for sunset cruises in Wilderness, oyster festivals in Knysna or a wobble over the suspension bridge at Storms River.
The Garden Route remains the Western Cape’s best-known attraction, and rightly so. But what if this is your second, fifth or 20th visit? Or maybe you just like the idea of getting off the beaten track, away from the crowd?
Here are three of the best alternatives.
The De Hoop Camino
South Africa’s best-kept secret, De Hoop Nature Reserve is a wilderness of white sand dunes, fynbos, and coastal wetlands, not far from Cape Agulhas, the southern tip of Africa. From Cape Town, it’s just a three-hour drive east.
New for 2023, the De Hoop Camino is an unguided, 14km hiking trail along its Marine Protected Area coastline and allows visitors to walk the final two days of the 55km, backpacking Whale Trail. Better still, rather than staying in communal cottages with bunk beds, you can bookend the adventure with luxury.
The trip starts with two days of guided nature walks, sundowner cocktails and braais (barbecues) at the Lekkerwater Beach Lodge, an oceanside bolthole, comprising just seven off-grid guest cabins. There’s a swimming pool and a wood-fired hot tub, but you won’t find air conditioning or TVs. Instead, the South Atlantic will keep you cool and well-entertained throughout the day. Then, when night falls, its rhythmic rumble will soothe you gently to sleep.
Lekkerwater is so delightful, you’ll find it hard to leave. However, the Camino is spectacular from start to finish and will lead you along deserted beaches, around rugged outcrops and past blowholes that shoot the Atlantic’s frigid waters high into the sky.
Dolphins can be spotted at any time of year, but if you take on the walk between July and November you’ll almost certainly spot southern right whales. Thousands of females pass through this safeguarded superhighway to calve in the turquoise waters.
The beach walking, over soft sand, can prove physically challenging. There’s also almost no shade whatsoever – so take plenty of water, sunscreen, and a wide-brimmed hat. But the trail is winding, varied and undulating – everything you want in a day hike.
The biggest highlight, however, is the rockpools, and everything you’ll discover within them. As the tide comes and goes it creates a network of thousands of shapeshifting, ephemeral worlds, where spiny sea stars share their bathtub-sized ponds with prickly urchins and octopi.
As you near the finish line at Morukuru Beach Lodge, some tidal pools are big enough to swim in, like the sandy-bottomed Hippo Pools (don’t worry, there are no two-tonne grouchy mammals to contend with). You can snorkel among iridescent shoals of juvenile flathead mullet, then sunbathe in the sheltered cove that surrounds it.
After a challenging hike, lasting anywhere between four and eight hours, Morukuru will nurse you back to full strength with dishes such as squid-ink gnocchi with Franschhoek Trout, and duck breast on a carrot and cashew puree. Voted South Africa’s Best Beach Hotel by The World Travel Awards in 2020, 2021 and 2022, its ocean views – just like Lekkerwater – are stupendous.
The Ocean View Suites look out towards Antarctica, but the Honeymoon Suite is the only room with an outside bath. Carved out of a giant hunk of granite, guests can stargaze with a glass of something cold and bubbly.
How to do it
The De Hoop Camino costs from $2792 per person and includes two nights at Lekkerwater Beach Lodge and two nights at Morukuru Beach Lodge. The price includes all meals, drinks, activities, luggage transfer and transfer back to your car at the starting point.
Cederberg
Renowned for its dramatic sandstone escarpments and San rock art, this mountain range, 298km north of Cape Town, sprawls across an area of 434sq km. After the searing heat of summer, the autumn and winter months can prove wetter, with some peaks even receiving a light dusting of snow.
The Cederberg’s hiking trails take on a new lease of life in the cooler months, and there’s a better chance of spotting baboons and dassies (hyrax) around rocky outcrops. Grey rheebuck, klipspringers, duiker and grysbok can occasionally be seen, and if you’re extremely lucky, you might catch a glimpse of (or see the tracks) the elusive Cape Leopard.
When the skies clear, this region is perfect for stargazing. Tourists can head to the privately owned Cederberg Astronomical Observatory on three Saturday evenings each month (when the full moon doesn’t interfere) to enjoy dazzling closeups of planets, comets, nebulae and faraway galaxies. In the winter, especially, the centre of our very own Milky Way – Sagittarius – becomes clearer.
One of the very best hotels in the region is Bushmans Kloof, a collection of 14 rooms, two suites and two villas, set in a 7700ha private reserve. You won’t find the Big Five, however, guests can embark on morning, afternoon and night drives to spot Cape Mountain Zebra – a species saved from the brink of extinction – alongside Red Hartebeest, Grey Rhebok and Ostriches. There’s also a chance of seeing smaller creatures like the Bat-Eared Fox, African Wildcat, Cape Fox, Caracal and Cape Clawless Otter.
The birding is exceptional, too, and more than 150 species, such as African fish eagles and iridescent sunbirds can be spotted in the ponds and gardens surrounding the guest rooms. The reserve is also home to more than 750 indigenous plant species, many of which are endemic to the Cederberg. Spring (August and September) is the best time to witness wildflowers, which illuminate the landscape in a riot of colour. There are canoe excursions along the Olifants River, plus mountain biking and hiking trails, but the biggest allure is the more than 130 San rock art sites dotted around the reserve.
Back at base, you’ll find a gym, spa and wine cellar. The food is exceptional, too. Meals are fresh and hearty, and include the South African specialities of bunny chow – curry in a hollowed-out loaf of bread – and pap with nyama, corn meal with seasoned barbecue meat.
How to do it
Double rooms at Bushmans Kloof start from ZAR10,405 ($917) per night and include all meals and nature drives.
West Coast
Sweeping northwards, from the city of Cape Town to the Kalahari Desert, South Africa’s Wild West remains sparsely populated in contrast to the busier Garden Route. The West Coast National Park, which stretches from Yzerfontein to Langebaan, is particularly great for birding. The best place to observe waders like Curlews, Turnstones and Grey Plovers is from one of the two Geelbek hides, at the southern end of the lagoon.
Buffeted by the Atlantic, the adjacent town of Langebaan is popular with wind and kite surfers, but this does make sunbathing and sandcastles something of a challenge for everyone else. When the gusts do occasionally subside, however, the water is often a lot calmer (and slightly warmer) than the open ocean. A West Coast road trip should also include visits to Saldanha Bay (oysters that rival Knysna) and St Helena Bay (whale watching as exciting as Hermanus).
Many tourists choose to use Paternoster – one of the oldest fishing villages on the West Coast – as their base, and the five-star Strandloper Ocean Boutique Hotel is up there with the very best hotels in South Africa. Guests can walk straight from the verandas of their suites, through fynbos, to a white sand beach. They also have a policy of “no children under the age of 12,” which certainly helps contribute to the all-round sense of calm.
Strandloper promotes an ethos of doing very little, either sitting beside the swimming pool or while enjoying a couples massage in the spa, however anyone yearning for a change of pace can head out for guided kayaking excursions, horse rides or beach buggy dune tours. A happy medium might be found in a beach picnic, or a spin around the village on one of the hotel’s bicycles.
The food at Strandloper is particularly special, and eating at the hotel’s Leeto restaurant, at least once, is a must. Head chef Garth Almazan and his team serve up a fine dining menu, yet with the hearty portion sizes you’d come to expect in South Africa. The West Coast seafood linguini is a bold and punchy plate of prawns, calamari, mussels and sustainable line fish, and pairs perfectly with a glass of 2020 Kapokberg Chardonnay, from the nearby Groote Post vineyard.
How to do it
Doubles at Strandloper Ocean Boutique Hotel start from ZAR6975 ($614), including bed and breakfast.
Details
For more to see and do in South Africa, visit southafrica.net
Checklist
Getting there
Fly from Auckland to Cape Town with Emirates, with one layover in Dubai International Airport.