South Africa driving route
 

Hi and thanks to all who replied my earlier post asking about Sanparks bookings. I have now applied for some bookings in April 2008 in Kruger for 7 nights.

I will be travelling with my wife and 2 children aged 10 and 12.

After the 7 day Kruger safari we like to wind our way down self drive to Capetown stopping at nice and interesting places along the way. We like to stay in guest houses etc and will have about 10 - 14 days more available.

Would appreciate advice for the route, and possibly some nice places to stay, things to see and do including any other nice wildlife parks along the route. I was thinking a working farm might be interesting for the kids, and oh I do like wine.

Should I consider venturing West of Cape Town?

South Africa has so much....

Regards
Mohammed
(Sri Lanka)
See my photography at http://www.abidally.com/mp/home

Hi Mohammed

We drove the Garden Route from Cape Town to Port Elizabeth but it was 10 years ago. I remember Knysna, Plettenberg Bay, George, Cape Aguhlas as nice places where we stopped.
Do a research for the Garden Route on the web and you will find a lot of information.
Cape of Good Hope can be done as day trip from Cape Town, if you prefer !

Hi Mohammed - between Kruger and Cape Town there is a lot of not very much - now I know that some people would say there are some quaint towns to see, but my experience with 2 childre - I would fly down to Cape Town from Johannesburg - internal flights are not expensive - try Kalula

Spend your 10-14 days exploring Cape Town, the Winelands, the Garden Route, maybe head up the West Coast a bit, very different - a much more rugged coastline than the green and pretty Garden Route.

There are loads of trip reports on this forum you could read for ideas

good lucj with your planning - glad youare coming to South |Africa

oops - posted too soon, that was
www.kulula.com
also 1 time air and mango and SAA and BA run Jhbg to CT - try

www.saflights.co.za

hi, mohammed,

we are due to drive the garden route for 2 weeks at the end of July this year. we will spend 4 nights in CPT, 5 along the route itself, and 3 on an eastern cape safari. Then we fly home from Port elizabeth, via Jo'berg.

if you can wait til the beginning of august, I'll be posting a trip report on our return. [we booked in Jan'07 for July, so you should have long enough!]

regards, ann

We've done that drive and will be doing it again in August - really not a problem.

Your itinerary may vary, but here was ours last year -

Left Kruger (actually Sabi Sands) after a morning game drive and only went as far as Graskop, spending a few hours on the Panoramic Route in the process (3 Rondavels, God's Window etc.)

Next day, longish but not stressful drive to Cathedral Peak in the northern Drakensburg (via N11.)

We had planned to travel the next day to Port St. John's on the Wild Coast (should have allocated more time to Cathedral Peak but didn't know better) but were dissuaded by a couple we met at the Cathedral Peak Hotel, who said the going was so slow down to the coast that we'd arrive well after dark, not a good thing. (Remember this is mid-August so short daylight.) So instead we drove back through the Karoo to a farm B & B near Colesberg - the Kuilfontein Stable Cottages - www.kulfontein.co.za - where we had a great overnight stay. They're part of the really excellent Portfolio Collection of B&Bs and country hotels - www.portfoliocollection.com - that we've now adopted as our B&B bible for SA. (Went back up to the N5 and then the N1.)

The next day we drove down to the the coast (via Grahamstown due to road works) to Addo Elephant Park near Port Elizabeth.

A couple of days later, after touring Addo (great for you given your plans) we continued down the coast to Jeffrey's Bay to watch the surfers, then ended up in Plettenberg Bay.

We spent three days running around the Garden Route (two would be enough) using "Plett" as our base, then continued to Cape Town (actually staying in Stellenbosch.) We like Stellenbosch as a base in the western Cape since it's convenient to CT for day trips but also close to the wineries and coastal areas to the east and south (e.g. Franschhoek, Hermanus) and is also somewhat cheaper than CT proper.

So in our case Kruger > CT really involved 4 road days, but can be broken up pretty easily. If you wanted to push it, using the N4 and N1, you could probably do it with two overnights - maybe somewhere around Bloemfontein the first night and somewhere in the Karoo the second, or maybe straight through to the Garden Route the second if that's your pleasure.

Drat - misspelled the url - www.kuilfontein.co.za - sorry.

Thanks for all the great replies everyone!

Gardyloo, thanks for that terrific detail. Just what I needed. I checked out the kuilfontein web site and it looks nice so will probably zero in on this as one of my stops. Seems they have some fishing around there which is interesting.

"Should I consider venturing West of Cape Town?" Only if the boat is seaworthy. :-)

Enjoy your stay in S.A.!

Ha ha! Ok north west..or maybe more north.. I ain't a sailor!

I was contemlating whether I should venture towards Upington and possibly Kgalagadi?