Go South Africa:From elephants and ostriches to baboons, the bush-lined Garden Route is alive with wildlife – and the stars in its clear night sky will astound you, writes MAL ROGERS
THE BABOON seemed genuinely surprised to see me. He obviously didn’t expect anyone to be up and about at 6am, and in my case most times he would be right. Staring at me from his perch on top of a huge four-by-four, he seemed to lose the run of himself completely. He defecated on the bonnet, bared his teeth and screeched and, after a few seconds, took to his heels across some scrub. It’s been a long time since my arrival anywhere caused such excitement.
Oudtshoorn was the starting point in our search for the Little Karoo. “Wonderful!” I hear you say. “Is there a Big Karoo, and can it hop?” Not so fast. The Great Karoo is, in fact, the semi-desert of Western Cape; the Little Karoo is its more fertile cousin. Our itinerary would take us along what is reputedly the world’s longest wine route before reaching the Garden Route. Without a designated driver, an arduous journey seemed in store.
Route 62 is renowned not just for its wineries but also for its array of farms selling every type of cheese – and its restaurants. At Montagu we stopped at Jessica’s Restaurant in search of Cape delicacies. After working our way through an escarpment of couscous accompanied by Camembert-and-almond spring rolls, dessert arrived. Heralded as Balls of Surprise, it wasn’t as alarming as it sounded. Chocolate balls in potato batter with roasted walnut were topped with chocolate sauce and whipped cream. I offered to marry Jessica on the spot. Sadly, I was informed, Jessica was the faithful old family bulldog, and is no longer with us.
Montagu is the perfect base for exploring the grandeur of the Little Karoo. In places it appears more like the raw materials from which landscape is made, but festooned with seriously exotic plants. Not just a symphony of colour but a whole philharmonic orchestra.
At night the Karoo air is heady with the scent of jasmine and camphor, and an African soundtrack plays – in the distance a jackal howls; nearby myriad crickets, locusts and assorted flying things click and whirr.
Against this sensory extravagance, star gazing is the perfect diversion. Star safaris take advantage of the clear dry atmosphere and near-zero light pollution to show you the African skies. You’ll be dazzled by the Southern Cross, Cassiopeia and Ursa Major. It’s just a pity Orion is upside down. Still, you can’t have everything.
Soon we’re on the Garden Route proper. Let’s be clear: we’re not driving through herbaceous borders and well-tended lawns on a Sunday-afternoon jaunt. This is a magnificent drive along a route sandwiched between the Outeniqua and Tsitsikamma mountains and the Indian Ocean; 200km of forest and thick fragrant bush, known as fynbos, lines the road.
The wildlife is every bit as profligate as the scenery – sugarbirds with unfeasibly long tails, iridescent sunbirds, an astonishing variety of proteas (the South African national flower) – all in colours so ostentatious that Fabergé might have considered them gaudy.
Some of the world’s avian A-listers live in this neck of the woods. Look out for the odd black eagle scouting around for a nice monkey for lunch. Truly, the whole of nature is a conjugation of the verb to eat, in the active and passive.
Other feathered celebrities include kori bustards and red-knobbed coots. (I long for a politician, when asked if he is a hawk or a dove on international affairs, to reply: “Actually, I’m more of a red-knobbed coot.”)
The Garden Route begins around Mossel Bay, a seaside resort with buckets and spades in the shops and whales in the bay. Jackass-penguin colonies, too. You don’t often get a chance of an intimate glimpse into the private life of these rather comical birds, but in Western Cape they’re numerous and, dare I say, despite their name, rather dashing.
But time to move on. You don’t need to linger with your binoculars trained on a southern right whale; you never need to stay long watching the sumptuous gold of an African evening moving through a deep mountain gorge. This being South Africa, something else exciting, sensational, challenging or downright bizarre will happen before very long.
The area is a haven for golfing, visiting ostrich farms, cuddling baby elephants or visiting wineries. Tsitsikamma National Park has superb hiking trails – there’s even an underwater nature trail that you can snorkel along.
The extravagant vegetation is down to the area’s Mediterranean-type climate, with four definable seasons, unlike any other part of Africa. And thereby hangs a tale. When the warrior-like Bantu people expanded across Africa they were adept farmers as well as ferocious hunters. But being used to only two seasons a year, when it came to colonising the Cape, four seasons didn’t suit their crops. They moved on.
Thus the Cape came to be settled more sparsely, and not by a warrior people. So when whitey arrived – and the Cape was one of the first areas where significant European incursions took place – resistance was minimal.
One late evening in the Tsitsikamma Mountains, with the sky looking as if the universe had just been created, our guide, George, was finally prevailed upon to give us the pain of his ancestors. After all, he'd already had The Fields of Athenryfrom us.
Profiled against the setting sun, he told us quietly about the Griquas and how they had embraced Christianity. But things went badly for them, and on the eve of a battle with the Afrikaners in 1876, Koq, the leader of the Griquas tribe, prayed to God.
With jaw-dropping erudition George recited the prayer of intercession: “Despite a great many prayers to You we are continually losing our wars. Tomorrow we are fighting a battle that is truly great. With all our might we need Your help, and that is why I must tell You something: this battle tomorrow is going to be a serious affair. There will be no place in it for children. Therefore I ask You not to send your Son to help us. Come Yourself.”
The Garden Route is non- malarial, and regarded as relatively free of crime. Yet everywhere security is in your face. Magazines carry ads selling “Burglar bars with style”, toll roads promote themselves as “safe, regularly patrolled and dependable”, holiday homes all proclaim: “Armed Response Security”.
Having said that, nothing untoward happened to us, although our European sensibilities were regularly challenged. At one point, for example, we had to get ourselves from hotel to railway station, with luggage. “Is there a cab about?” I asked Willie, the elderly receptionist. “Cab? To the railway station? It’s only a mile,” he said, incredulously. In a jiffy he was out front, piling suitcases on his back and cameras around his neck, and off we marched to the railway station. He would brook no help from us – the full taxi fare was going to be his.
So there we were, an elderly black gentleman piled down with luggage, staggering along, while we followed sheepishly behind through the town. The ultimate nightmare for any white European liberal.
** Mal Rogers was a guest of Safari Consultants (safari- consultants.co.uk). See also tourismgardenroute.co.za
Go there
KLM (klm.com/ie) flies to Cape Town via Amsterdam. British Airways (ba.com) and South African Airways (flysaa.com) fly from London Heathrow. Air France (airfrance.ie) flies from Paris Charles de Gaulle via Johannesburg.
Where to stay and go on the Garden Route
Where to stay
Phantom Forest Eco Reserve. Knysna, 00-27-44- 3860046, phantomforest. com. For an idiosyncratic night, book into a luxury tree house at this ecolodge. A classic tree suite costs from 1,450 rand (€110) per night; dinner is 250 rand (€20).
Rosenhof Country House. 264 Baron Van Reede Street, Oudtshoorn, 00-27-44- 2723021, rosenhof.co.za. This Victorian manor offers five-star accommodation the capital of the Little Karoo. Double room, including breakfast, 1,950 rand (€150).
Altes Landhaus. Oudtshoorn, 00-27-44- 2726112, alteslandhaus.co.za. This traditional homestead has beautiful gardens, birds with rainbow plumage flitting about, and crocodile carpaccio for tea (tastes like turkey, as you ask). It costs 1,440 rand (€110) per person sharing.
Fancourt Hotel Country Club Golf Estate. Montagu Street, Blanco, George, 00-27-44-8040000, fancourt.co.za. Allow 1,900 rand (€145) per night per person sharing, with unlimited golf on the day of the night you stay, plus dinner and breakfast the next morning.
Where to go
Cango Caves. Swartberg Mountains, 29km from Oudtshoorn, 00-27-44- 2727410, cango-caves.co.za. A mesmerising world of winding underground rivers, waterfalls and lofty subterranean chambers. Standard tours visit the first half-dozen chambers. For the more intrepid – and claustrophobia-free – an adventure tour crawls and slithers through remote passages into dark chambers.
Knysna Elephant Park. On the N2, midway between Knysna and Plettenberg Bay, 00-27-44-5327732, knysnaelephantpark.co.za. A pachyderm park full of elephants that have mostly been saved from culling. Daily tours give visitors the opportunity to feed the gentle giants themselves.
Astro Tours. 00-27-72- 7322950, astrotours.co.za. Of the 88 officially recognised constellations in our solar system, 45 are in the southern hemisphere. Two words of warning: even though Astro Tours provides hot water bottles and fortifying whiskies, wrap up well; and there is a False Cross that pretends to be the true Southern Cross.
Bartolomeu Dias Museum. 1 Market Street, Mossel Bay, 00-27-44-6911067, diasmuseum.co.za. A good place to get a tenuous handle on South Africa’s history. The eponymous Bartolomeu was the first European to visit the bay. He was met by the indigenous Khoikhoi people, who defended their watering hole. Dias’s men killed one of them, triggering African resistance to colonisation.
Shark Africa. Mossel Bay, 00-44-6913796, sharkafrica. co.za. If you do want to come face to face with Jaws, Shark Africa offers cage-diving from Mossel Bay.