The Garden Route Holidays

Glide among the treetops in this 30-metre-high zip line tour of Tsitsikamma National Park. Enjoy unrivalled views as you make your way along ten treetop platforms with guides who’ll teach you about the protected forest – one which is populated by giant Outeniqua yellowwood trees up to 700 years old. 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. (Ages seven and over).

Enjoy a breakfast and commence on a venture to get up close and personal to some of the most majestic beings in the animal kingdom. 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. (Wildlife sightings cannot be guaranteed.)

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.

You are there to observe and they’re free to roam wherever they want, which means that the night before 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 basic 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 they’re all huddled up together and you just see little faces sticking up. Sometimes they staying active by cleaning out their burrows. 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 in a line on one side of the burrow 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.