East of the Cape is the Garden Route, notable for its dramatic mountains, strings of large fresh water lakes, beaches, estuaries and the forests, which give the area its name. The region gets summer and winter rainfall and has six biomes covering semi-desert, succulent Karoo, thicket, forest, fynbos and coastal areas. The thicket biome is special here—it’s a place of tangled creepers, spiny euphorbias, aloes as well as many of species that are also found in the Cape Floral Kingdom.

• Don’t miss the Tsitsikamma National Park where you will find true forests featuring fantastic yellowwood trees towering in the canopy, draped with old man’s beard. The forests echo with the call of the spectacular red winged Knysna turaco. Elephants also occur here, but they are very rare.
• The Greater Addo Game Reserve, which is run by the National Parks Board, and the smaller parks of the Eastern Cape are part of a conservation success story that has seen the proliferation of wild areas and game reserves over the past 10 or 15 years. You can expect the sorts of activities that you will find in other very good game reserves. As the reserves are fenced, it’s often easier to find game, but you will not get quite the same wilderness feeling as you can expect in a larger game reserve. It’s a fascinating area full of reminders—some good and some not so good—of the area’s English-settler history and the infamous Xhosa wars, which went on for decades.
• For those wanting to go right into the heart of tribal South Africa and the birthplace of Nelson Mandela, the area called the Wild Coast which lies to the east and is reached by extremely bumpy dirt roads, remains one of the most fascinating areas to visit from a scenic and cultural point of view. Talk to us about the waterfalls of Mboyti and the spectacular land and seascapes found in this area. We know these areas intimately.

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