Cape Town and Garden Route Adventure Tour

You leave our hotel for Cape Town's most famous icon: Table Mountain by the Aerial Cableway to take in the natural beauty and stunning views. The first botanical garden in the world to be established (in 1913) to protect local flora. Kirstenbosch National Botanical Garden in the UNESCO-listed Cape Floral Kingdom follows. Lunch is at an African cuisine restaurant. Visiting Groot Constantia, where we taste their export quality wines. We spend the night at Caledon Hotel and Spa. The Caledon Hotel and Spa has an impressive view of the Klein Swartberg Mountains and the continuing wheat fields. The hotel offers guests mineral-rich hot springs and spa. The wellness centre is equipped with comfortable seating, natural hot springs, lap pool, steam room, sauna, frigidarium (the distinctive brown colour of the water is due to the rich mineral content known as chalybeate), Swiss shower, elegant Victorian Bath House (erected in 1897) and outdoor Jacuzzi.

Drive for approximately 3 hours to the town of Mossel Bay where we visit the Bartolomeu Dias Museum Complex to see the famous 500-year-old Post Office Tree, the life-size replica of the Dias Caravel, the Shell Museum & Aquarium and Ethno-Botanical Garden. A shark cage diving experience, or a slide down the world’s longest over-ocean zipline can be arranged at Mossel Bay as optional activities. Now, off to the town of Wilderness, where you will overnight at the Wilderness Hotel.

After breakfast, a drive through Knysna takes you to the town of Plettenberg Bay, where you can take a boat ride for a “Dolphin Encounters” excursion of 2 hours at Ocean Blue Adventures. This follows a drive to the world’s highest bridge bungee jump at Bloukrans Bridge. Standing 709 feet (216 meters) above the Bloukrans River, the arch bridge is the ideal place to bungee jump. This is an optional activity (at own expense), and you are free to watch the bungee jumpers take the plunge. A short drive takes us to the ±1000-year-old Big Tree in the Tsitsikama forest. You overnight at On The Beach Guest House Jeffrey’s Bay (or similar).

The picturesque surfing mecca of Jeffreys Bay boasts a considerable reputation that stretches far and wide. It is most noted for producing the best right hand surf break in the world, with the main surfing spot named Supertubes. The constant swell and wave formation found at many of Jeffreys Bay's beaches produce the ideal 'tubes' that have resulted in Supertubes becoming the location for the annual Billabong Pro surfing contest.

You have an early morning start for a day trip to Addo Elephant National Park, the third largest national park in South Africa. Home to elephants, lions, buffalo, black rhino, spotted hyena, leopard, a variety of antelope and zebra species, this park hosts the largest remaining population of wild elephants on the planet. You’ll enjoy a safari with our knowledgeable guide and get the opportunity to see buffalo and other big animals. Have dinner at De Viswijf, situated on the beachfront of the in Jeffreys Bay. An extensive menu comprising of seafood, beef, poultry, traditional local dishes and several exotic dishes. Their extensive wine list includes wines from numerous South African wine estates and regions that are made to satisfy and tantalize your palate. Overnight at the same venue in Jeffrey’s Bay.

Jeffreys Bay has always been known for its beautiful shells, so it stands to reason that the town should have a Shell Museum. The more than 600 shells from species all over the world makes it one of the largest shell collections in South Africa. Local shells and shell craft can be purchased just outside the museum from the shell shops and stalls.

After breakfast, you’ll travel approximately four hours on the famous Route 62 to get to Oudtshoorn for a Heritage Tour at the Cango Caves. Located in a limestone ridge parallel to the picturesque Swartberg Mountains, the caves include over 2.5 miles (4 km) of drip stone caverns with vast halls and towering formations of stalactites and stalagmites. You’ll walk through some of this subterranean wonderland with your guide on a 1-hour tour of the caves. From here, we go to an Ostrich Farm where the largest fowl in the world can be studied. We drive to our overnight farm at De Zeekoe (or similar). This area is surrounded by the Swartberg and Outeniqua mountains. It is one of the world’s 17 “hot spots” with 3 overlapping flower zones, which is located between the lush green Garden Route and the wide-open spaces of the Klein (Little) Karoo with the Outeniqua and Swartberg mountain ranges as backdrop.

Get up before sunrise to take part in a wild meerkat tour which offers you the unique opportunity to see these animals that are part of the shy 5 in their natural environment. Breakfast follows your return to Cape Town along Route 62, the world's longest wine route. You’ll pass through breath-taking scenery and have plenty of rest stops. Also to be visited is Ronnie's Sex Shop which gets visitors from all over the world, judging by the graffiti on its wall. There will be more stops for wine tasting before reaching Cape Town in the evening to end your tour.