The Garden Route Hotels & Resorts

Glide among the treetops in this 30-metre-high zip line tour of Tsitsikamma National Park on Africa's first zipline canopy tour. Enjoy unrivalled views as you make your way along ten treetop platforms with guides who’ll teach you about the protected forest, populated by giant Outeniqua yellowwood trees dating up to 700 years old.

After a safety briefing and getting into your harness you will be driven into the forest where your adventure begins. Any fear of heights will soon be lost as you glide along the steel cables above the tree tops to the next platform. On your wired flight, you might even be able get a closer look at the park’s brightly coloured birdlife, including the Narina trogon and Knysna loerie or you encounter a curious vervet monkey, after all you are in their territory now. 

Please note minimum age is 7 years.

Experience close encounters with whales on this ecological boat trip along Plettenberg's coastline. After your safety briefing, you'll be equipped with life jackets and ponchos. The tour begins with an exciting launch through the surf from Central Beach where you will pass a bird sanctuary enroute to Arch Rock where you may encounter bottlenose and rare Indo-Pacific humpback dolphins.

Crossing the bay towards the Robberg Peninsula, you may see whales and pods of dolphins as well as a Cape fur seal colony. Whilst wildlife sightings cannot be guaranteed, this tour runs between June and November, giving you more chance to see humpback and southern right whales who both visit around these months, alongside the resident Bryde’s whale.

Take a journey through Stormsriver Pass, surrounded by indigenous Tsitsikamma forest where woodcutters once worked. You’ll board an open-sided safari-style vehicle, which is pulled by a tractor along forested paths, for the three-hour tour. The route takes you through an ancient elephant migratory route that’s full of huge yellowwood and stinkwood trees. Along the way, you'll learn about the history of this area and its indigenous flora and fauna.

Guests love being out in the wilderness, with the sound of insects and colourful birds rustling in the leaves. Listen out for fish eagles and the colourful Knysna loerie and Narina trogon. At one time, this forest was home to hunter-gatherers called the Khoisan people, who lived off the land. Tsitsikamma is a Khoi word that means ‘place of many waters’. You’ll stop to see specific plants, including the knob wood tree which was used by the Khoisan people for toothache, as well as bushman’s bedding, a natural insect repellent.

A highlight of the trip is meeting the Forest Guard, a nearly 500-year-old tree that has a human-like face on the trunk and is said to watch over the area. You’ll also get to stand next to a giant hard pear tree – these can live for up to 800 years – and see one of the oldest buildings in Stormsriver, a former stone hunting lodge. At the end of the tour stop at a beautiful picnic site where wagons used to park over a century ago, for some drinks and snacks.

Explore Robberg Nature Reserve on this guided hike along prehistoric cliffs where you can spot marine life in the ocean below. Designated a National Monument, the reserve lies between the Tsitsikamma Mountain range and South Africa’s whale migration route known as the ‘humpback highway’. The Robberg Hiking Trail is probably one of the most popular and well known trails in the area and one of the most scenic.

The peninsula sits about 120 metres above sea level so you’re looking down on the wild ocean on one side and the calm waters of Plettenberg Bay on the other – both have marine protected status. From 'the gap', you climb up towards the cliffs overlooking the Cape fur seal colony, keeping a lookout for patrolling sharks. Then you head down a large sand dune onto the southern 'wild side' and across the Tombola beach for a walk around the island, before heading back towards the starting point. The route is a circular trail along the Robberg peninsula with two shorter variations available ranging from easy to moderate. Your guide will talk you through the history of Robberg and point out the various plant species and their traditional uses. You'll be stepping on bedrock that dates back around 120 thousand years, so it’s almost a spiritual experience walking on this ancient landscape covered by colourful fynbos. Robberg also attracts a number of bird species. As well as seabirds such as the Cape cormorant, you may also see Cape robins, Cape white-eyes, red-winged starlings and orange-breasted sunbirds. Robberg is a beautiful place to experience many different features of the Garden Route.

Take a scenic cruise around Knysna and across its famous lagoon. Pass ‘The Heads’, a pair of cliffs that form a natural opening into the lagoon and out into the Indian Ocean.

Learn about one of the world’s most decadent foods as you try some of the freshest oysters you can find. A famous delicacy in Knysna, you’ll taste both wild and cultivated oysters and, accompanied with some wine, it’s a luxurious way to experience the local cuisine.

On this tour you will get to watch a group of meerkats that have been habituated over more than a decade. The goal is to keep it as natural as possible and not to interfere with the animals’ lives. You are there to observe and they’re free to roam wherever they want.

Each evening, the guides have to go out to check which burrow system they’re using out of more than 20 they could stay at, so they know where they’ll be the next morning.

It is an early start because you will be taken to the burrow before sunrise so you can be comfortably seated while the meerkats are still sleeping. You will patiently wait for them to wake up and then get to see what the meerkats do on a daily basis. Because it’s nature, you never know what’s going to happen. But the usual routine is that the meerkats will emerge and start warming up using the sun if it is available; if it’s not, they’ll use different methods like cuddling up together - known as the meerkat totem pole. You can observe these activities and their social behaviour: scent marking, sorting out the social hierarchy in the group and then heading off to forage for the morning. The guides will explain what the meerkats are doing and why but very careful not to do anything to make them feel threatened, so you will sit about five metres away so they have the freedom to leave whenever they like. People are fascinated by meerkats, and once you get to learn more about them – their habits, the intense social structure that they have – they become even more relatable.

The Little Karoo, or Klein Karoo, is one of the best places in the world for stargazing due to its huge panoramic landscapes and very low light pollution with just a few small towns. With more than 300 days of sunshine a year – clouds are rare so the night skies are exceptionally clear.

The experience is described as ‘Exploring the High Five’ - the stars, galaxies, globular clusters such as Omega Centauri, planets, and constellations including the Southern Cross. Because the Earth is rotating, the sky looks a little different every night, so the focus will be on whatever the highlights are at that particular time of year.

The stargazing experience is brought to you at some of the most popular guesthouses in town, so after supper just walk outside and meet the guide; the telescope is set up and ready to use right away. The telescope is used to point out the significant attributes of planets or stars that you can’t see with the naked eye and your guide will share some startling facts about them.

Go in search of dolphins and marine life on this eco-friendly boat trip in the protected marine reserve of Plettenberg Bay. The geography of Plettenberg Bay is very special, with the Robberg Peninsula, creating a half-moon shaped bay that stops a lot of open-water swells. There are two marine protected areas that attracts whales, dolphins, seals and sharks.

You will meet 30 minutes before the boat departs for a safety briefing and to be fitted with a life jacket and, if necessary, a poncho. The boat trip lasts around an hour and a half and begins with an exciting beach launch. The boat gets dragged into the ocean by a tractor and then launched into the waters.

As you cruise alongside Keurbooms beach towards Arch Rock, endangered Indo-Pacific humpback dolphins may be seen. There are only about 500 left in South Africa so it’s a special experience if you do get to see them. Bottlenose and common dolphins often surround the boat and occasionally you may see whales.

You will get to see plenty of seabirds such as the Cape gannets that dive into the water after fish. As you sail past the cliffs of Robberg, there is a colony of 7,000 Cape fur seals and where sometimes you may see great white sharks. The tour ends with a thrilling beach landing. A proportion of the cost of this tour goes towards the ORCA Foundation to continue vital conservation and research work.  This tour operates from December to May.