Depart from Cape Town and drive eastwards via the beautiful coastal route between Gordon’s Bay and Hermanus, a seaside holiday town (Hermanus is the best place in the World to spot Whales from land – July to Dec). After lunch we drive on to Mossel Bay. Here we visit the oldest post office in Africa, the Post Office Tree, which was also the site of the first landfall made by the Portuguese explorer Bartholomew Dias, in 1488.
We travel over the Outeniqua Mountains to the Little Karoo to visit an Ostrich Farm for some unique experiences, including ostrich racing. A ride on a back of an ostrich is not for the fainthearted. We visit the Cango caves, regarded as one of South Africa's foremost natural wonders. The fascinating calcite caves comprises an underground wonderland of stalactites and stalagmites. Visit Oudtshoorn, also called the "Feather capital" of the world, as over ninety percent of the world's ostrich farms are found here.
After breakfast we visit the Cango Wildlife Ranch and Valley of Ancients, an “endangered species breeding facility” extraordinaire. Then depart for George and Wilderness National Park. We skirt around the lakes with stops at scenic viewpoints, and then arrive in Knysna. The town is situated on the edge of the Knysna Lagoon; its entrance to the sea is guarded by two promontories known as the "Heads". The area also falls within a National Park proclaimed to conserve the extraordinary natural beauty of the lakelands and adjacent indigenous forests. Knysna also offers shopping opportunities of unusual locally made art and craft, etc. We join a sundowner cruise on the lagoon.
We explore Knysna and travel further via Plettenberg Bay for a short visit. Then we traverse through magnificently scenic river valley passes. We visit the Tsitsikamma National Park (Khoisan for 'The place of much water"), which stretches more than 100 km along a wild and rocky coastline characterised by massive cliffs, narrow isolated beaches and shady indigenous forests along the river valleys. Our next stop is Storms River with the impressive Paul Sauer Bridge across the valley towering some 139 m above the river. The final part of our journey takes us past a few coastal holiday villages to Port Elizabeth, also called the 'Friendly City' for a short city tour before the tour ends.
