Garden Route, South Africa

March 2020-South Africa is such a beautiful country that it can be overwhelming deciding what to see. We broke our trip down into four main segments, the Garden Route, Wine County /Cape Town, Safari and Long Beach/Cape Peninsula. Thanks to online research and wonderful recommendations from friends, we were excited to start our adventure along the Garden Route. After a long flight from Newark, we stayed our first night at Hotel Verde. Its close proximity to the airport made it ideal for our early morning flight to Port Elizabeth.

There is a running joke between Adam and I about who does a majority of the driving at home (spoiler alert…it’s definitely me), but Adam stepped up to the plate and did all of the driving in South Africa. I’m so grateful as the opposite side of the road definitely takes some getting used to for the driver and passenger!

On our way to our first overnight stay, we stopped at Tsitsikamma National Park. The trail to the suspension bridges was quite easy and definitely worth it for the views! We were lucky to have such a beautiful morning to explore.

We spent our first night in Plettenberg Bay and stayed at the Sky Villa Boutique Hotel, which sits on a hilltop with breathtaking views of the town below.

We freshened up and headed into town to explore. The beach views made it an easy decision to stop and have a drink at the Lookout Deck.

For dinner, we made reservations at the Instagram dream known as Emily Moon. The property is stunning. We enjoyed a cocktail at Simon’s Bar, which has a lively happy hour atmosphere before enjoying a delicious meal in the main restaurant.

Thanks to the jet-lag, we were up early the next morning and caught a beautiful sunrise over our deck before soaking up the views at breakfast.

Our next stop was the lookout over the Knysna Heads and Lagoon. Couple selfies never being our strong point, we still gave it our best shot while taking in the incredible scenery.

There is a funny thing that often happens when you attempt to check weather forecasts for other countries via US sites; they are very wrong. While the projections we saw showed 70s it was definitely a lot hotter than expected in Knysna. It was closing in on 90F at 11am. So we found a cool spot in the shade to grab a cocktail and oysters. Spending time along the waterfront at Knysna Quays was a nice way to spend part of a day. I would recommend it for an overnight stay if you were stretching out the drive a bit longer than we did.

We made a quick stop in the Wilderness before arriving in Mossel Bay. We decided to stay in Mossel to shorten our drive the following day but it is a bit more industrial than the other towns along the Garden Route. I wouldn’t make it a “must see”. We still enjoyed our evening checking out the local establishments and landmarks.

The next morning, we had about a four hour drive to Hermanus. Even with cloudy weather, the drive was breathtaking as we moved from the plains to mountains back to the coast. Adam and I both instantly fell in love with Hermanus. We were not visiting at the right time of year, but Hermanus is one of the best places to watch whales from land during the prime season (June to December). Just google it and you’ll see the incredible pictures. But even without the whales and sunshine, Hermanus is easy to enjoy. There are plenty of boutique hotels and we chose One Marine. On our route to our room, I spotted this adorable pink hutch and told Adam I thought our future house should definitely include a pink bar but he’s still not sold. Just look at it!

We were both sold on the views from our room and all the little touches that they thought of from local maps, warm towel bars to sanitized remotes.

We left our cozy room to explore more of the town including the Cliff Path. While I can’t imagine how gorgeous this would be on a sunny day, we were both still taken by the beauty of the crashing waves and clouds.

Hungry, we stopping in to grab a waffle sandwich along the main promenade, before venturing off to spend a cloudy day in my favorite way, wine tasting. The Wine Glass was an ideal way to try a few local wines before venturing back to our hotel.