Garden Route Region
The Garden Route Region can be divided into three distinct regions:
The Garden Route region runs along a scenic stretch of coastline
beginning in Cape Town and ending in Port Elizabeth.
This is South Africa’s most popular tourist destination after Cape Town, and
it’s easy to see why.
Visitors are drawn year-round to its indigenous forests, freshwater
lakes, hidden coves, long white beaches and quaint little towns.
From Cape Town, you can either follow the national road (N2) through the
Overberg, or you can take a more winding coastal route along the Whale
Coast. Eventually, you’ll rejoin the N2 and end up in Mossel Bay, where the
national road continues along the coastal plain flanked by mountains on the
one side and the Indian Ocean on the other.
Garden Route
Once you get to Mossel Bay, the N2 follows the undulating coastline all the
way to Port Elizabeth. This narrow coastal plain is well forested and is
mostly bordered by extensive lagoons that run behind a barrier of sand dunes
and superb white beaches. The region has some of the largest patches of
indigenous forest in the country – giant yellowwood trees and wildflowers –
as well as commercial plantations of eucalyptus and pine.
Highlights of the Garden Route include the Wilderness coastal stretch,
Knysna’s lagoon and forest-based activities, as well as Plettenberg Bay,
which combines some of South Africa’s best swimming beaches with beautiful
forest and indigenous vegetation.
Near Plettenberg Bay is the unspoilt Tsitsikamma National Park, where
dense indigenous forests are punctuated by streams and tumbling waterfalls
flowing towards the coast.
