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| The Garden Route |
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Click here for hotels in Garden Route |
| The Garden Route, ranked among South Africa's most popular scenic attractions, is a 780-kilometers section of the N2 highway at the south-western corner of the country between Cape Town and Port Elizabeth. The region is excellently serviced by roads and has a delightful branch railway from George to Knysna which is till worked by steam locomotives.
The Garden Route stretches like a necklace of bays, beaches cliffs and rocky capes strung together along a line of pounding white surf. Mountains crowd the shoreline and high rainfall on their peaks provide a consistent supply of water to the narrow coastal terrace where every bit of soil nourishes some plant growth. The ocean teems with game fish and divers delight in the silent underwater world of bright colours and brave fish. The rivers, stained amber by the soil, have lovely navigable stretches, the Knysna lagoon lends itself to cheerfully indulgences and the forests provoke cool walks through tunnels of shade. |
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| Much of the Garden Route is overlooked by the Outeniqua Mountains, named after the Hottentot tribe of the name. "Outeniqua" was said to mean "a man laden with honey"-possibly because the profuse wild flowers here attract hoards of bees. In sharp contrast with the lush greenery of the Garden Route, only a drive of an hour or so from George, in a broad valley behind the Outeniqua Mountains, you will find a very different world-the Little Karoo, a name aptly derived from the Khoi word "karee", meaning "dry". Although characterized by the harsher form of beauty that is associated with more arid landscapes, it is a world that in places enterprising farmers have rendered verdant, famed for its ostrich farms and one of the premier unenumerated wonders of the natural world-the Cango Caves. |
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| Halfway between Cape Town and Port Elizabeth, Mossel Bay is a well-established place to start your Garden Route travels. Mossel Bay is also the first town in South Africa in which a European building-a small chapel which no longer exists-was erected. Oudtshoorn, the capital of the Klein Karoo and home to the ostrich breeding business, is just over the hill, bungy jumping just down the drag and the whole of the Garden route about to begin or finish-depending on the direction you are travelling in. |
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| Surrounded by a national lake area and overlooking the Touw River Estuary in which hippos used to wallow, Wilderness is a magical place. It is a large area with a thousand and one little nooks and crannies that you can disappear into any given moment-so if you are wanting to get lost, this is a good place to start.
Knysna means different thing to different people. To some, its sanctuary to the sea horses that live gently amongst its reeds, to others it's the choe-tjoe steam train that runs from Knysna to George, and yet others it's the taste of salty oysters on their tongues. Click here for Garden Route Hotel Click here for excursions and recommended sightseeing tours www.gardenroute.co.za |
 South African Holidays GSA Sun Aviation Co., Ltd. 20th Fl., Vorawat Bldg., 2001 849 Silom Road, Bangkok 10500
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