Akosmian

Last-minute help, please! We're arriving Sept 1st and need to be back in Cape Town by the 11th. I definitely want to leave enough time for Cape Town activities but would like to see a little more of the region if possible. We're an active couple in our 30s who love animals and nature but also looking forward to restaurants, bars and shopping (we currently live in the boondocks in West Africa). Since we weren't planning on this trip (it's an add-on to a last minute conference), we're not sure we can swing a safari time-wise or budget-wise.

Activities we'd like to do (I'm sure I'm missing some):
- Table Mountain
- Robben Island
- City tour & museums
- Cheetah site (where is this where you can pet them?)
- Whale watching and perhaps cage diving
- Wine country (2 nights in Franschoeck sounds great from reviews)
- Penguins
- Cape Point tour
- Baboon watch/walk

So, I guess my question is whether or not we should stay at a B&B in Cape Town for most of the time (excluding the 2 nights in wine country) and do day trips or try to do part of the Garden Route. Based on some advice earlier, the latter option could begin by flying into Port Elizabeth, visiting Addo or other game parks, driving through garden route (best stops?), continuing through Hermanus for the whales, Franschoeck for the wine and ending in Cape Town. I'd like advice on how long that itinerary would take and if it is too packed. As I mentioned earlier, we definitely want enough time in CT.

Thanks in advance for any help you can give me!

CarlaM

I can help you with the Cheetah Outreach at Spier (Stellenbosch)

http://www.cheetah.co.za/cheetahs.htm

It was one of the highlights of my trip. From your list, we did all but the cage diving in 5 days but only stayed one day in the winelands. Such a fabulous place!

annhig

Hi, akosmian,

you're describing the trip we just did, so you could click on my name and read my trip report!

if you only have 10 days or so, I'd stick to the Cape town area. Part of the reason for this is the distance involved - the garden route proper does not start until you get to knysna, which is about 500 kms from CPT. to do this and east cape safari as well is a bit of a tall order.

if you stuck to CPT and surroundings, you could spend the entire time in CPT, and do day trips to Spier [for the cheetahs] and the winelands, Hermanus for the whales, and the cape for the penguins. [definitely only a day trip]

I'd leave the garden route and east-cape safari to another time.

regards, ann

Akosmian

Thanks Carla for the cheetah information!

And Ann, thank you for your reply as well! I just read your trip report and it does look like what we're now planning. It appears that you spent 12 days including garden route and safari - did you feel like this was too much?

Since I last posted, I've been searching around and found the "Mantis deal". Is this what you went on? If we fly directly to Port Elizabeth on Sept 1, we could have a couple nights in Shamwari (with one night before in Port E to rest up), a couple nights around Knysa, and a couple in Franschoek before returning to Cape Town.

I probably didn't explain well earlier that we aren't actually leaving on the 11th but rather just have to be there for a conference. We won't actually leave CT until the 15th so I hope this is still enough time to see everything there since we would be there a total of 8 days.

Thanks again for sharing your experiences!

Akos

Diamantina

You can combine some of these activities, or at least group them together.
Driving from Cape Town to Cape Point, you can easily stop by Boulders Beach in Simonstown to see the penguins. It's on the way. Also on the way, you can do the Chapman's Peak Drive--this has got to be one of the world's most spectacular coastal drives.
Hermanus is a good base for both whale watching and shark cage diving-- shark cage operators will pick you up and take you to nearby Gaansbaai/Kleinbaai, where you depart by boat to the vicinity of Dyer Island to see the sharks. There are also several nice wineries outside of Hermanus--in the Walker Bay wine area known as Hemel-en-Aarde (Heaven and Earth), most notable are Bouchard Finlayson and Hamilton Russell wineries.
This wine area is tiny compared to Stellenbosch, but if you are passing through to Hermanus, you might consider visiting these wineries.
You can easily visit Cheetah Outreach at Spier, which is in Stellenbosch, while you are staying in nearby Franschhoek, or on the way to Cape Town the day you leave Franschhoek. This is what we did--it was on the way.
A visit to Table Mountain won't take all day--unless you want to hike around a lot. So maybe you can visit in the morning and then do something else in the afternoon, perhaps visit Robben Island. If the waters are rough, the ferry to Robben Island will not sail. If you would like to see their website:
http://www.robben-island.org.za/default.asp
I don't think you'll have to go out of your way to see baboons, especially if you are going to Cape Point or the Eastern Cape.
Addo is wonderful. Just remember, when it's rained a lot the elephants (and other animals as well) stay in the bush--they have less of a need to come to the waterholes. You might have to drive around for a few hours--of course, you take your time, going slowly, stopping often. When you see the elephants, it's wonderful because they generally don't have the same fear or aggression that you will find among the Kruger elephants. This is because, I was told by the ranger, they have never been culled. I don't think they have many poachers around there, either (Addo's female elephants tend to not have tusks). The rangers at Addo didn't even have guns/rifles with them, which surprised me. Addo's self catering accommodations are very nice, economical, comfortable and clean, with good views over the park and its wildlife. At Addo, we also saw zebras, black backed jackals, loads of kudus and warthogs, meerkats, bush bucks, grey duikers, mongoose, Vervet monkeys, scrub hares, Cape Buffalo (Addo's Cape Buffalo, unlike many of those in Kruger, are disease free), a big tortoise in the rest camp, dung beetles, and many birds like ostriches, herons, owls, ibises and Egyptian geese. Others saw lions and hyenas, though the ranger told us because it had been raining spottings of these rarer animals such as the lions, hyenas, and black rhinos were scarce. If you want more info, you might take a look at the SAN Parks website:
http://www.sanparks.org/parks/addo/
The "forum" section is where you can ask questions about the parks.

Diamantina

I forgot to add that if you decide to fly to Port Elizabeth to visit Shamwari or Addo and then drive down the coast, another place you might consider spending a night on the way to the Garden Route could be Tsitsikamma National Park, which offers self catering cabins by the sea, most with fantastic ocean views. This coastline here is rugged, wild, and very verdant. I would say it is about a three and a half hour drive from Addo (more or less). Here is their website (click on "availability" if you would like to see their accommodations):
http://www.sanparks.org/parks/tsitsikamma/
You didn't say what you wanted to shop for. Of course, Cape Town has great shopping, but if you want to pop into a shopping mall in Port Elizabeth there is a good one relatively close to the airport: Walmer Park Shopping Centre

annhig

Hi again, Akos,

Diamantina has given you a lot of useful information. I can only say that we felt that 12 days wasn't anywhere near enough to really see the area from CPT to PE. if you've only got 8 days, you'll be really pushed. but I'm not sure from your last post whether this is really what you mean.

If you have from 1-11/9 to do PE to CPT, then 11-15 in CPT itself, then what you propose is very possible.

Using the mantis deal [assuming you mean the Shamwari/Radisson one that we did and that it's still available] you could do
one night PE,
2 nights Shamwari
3 nights knynsa
2 nights hermanus
2/3 nights franschoek
and get to CPT easily by 11/9.

from memory, mantis also do some shamwari/Franschoek deals which you might like if your conference accommodation in CPT is already provided for.

the knynsa area is wonderful ,and the 2 days/3 nights we had there were not really enough. on the other hand, 3 nights safari was quite enough! but that is us, not you.

as the OP says, you can easily take in spier on your way to CPT from stellenbosch/franschoek. I have to say that I wasn't too keen on the idea of petting a captive cheetah, and our Shamwari ranger agreed that it was dangerous for both human and animal. but the birds they have there, and the general set-up are great.

In CPT itself, you are right in saying Table mountain is just half a day, unless you want to walk up or down. we spend the rest of the day at kirstenbosch gardens - which were qutie stunning and a highlight of my trip. we spend another day doig the city itself, but never really scratched the surface - we did the castle, and the slave house - which again was a definite highlight, if somewhat harrowing.
our third day was spent on the cape - we drove down false bay to simonstown and saw the penguins, then further onto the cape proper where we spend several hours walking and eating. finally we drove back up Chapman's drive and watched the sunset from signal hill. so it is easy to combine several things.

hope this helps,

regards, ann

Akosmian

Thank you both Diamantina and Ann for the wonderful suggestions! It looks like it might all work out after all. We will try to combine the Shamwari-stop along the Garden Route-Franschoek plan. I appreciate all your help and look forward to posting a trip report when we return.

- Akos