Reply To: Cape Town – Garden Route road trip advice

[WaynedP]

Lovely @Louise K, you won’t regret a 3 week visit at that time of year, but take and use good sun protection as UV viciousness will be easy to miss in presence of a slight breeze.

If I were you, I’d start consulting http://www.getaway.co.za which is a great travel magazine written for locals and always packed with good travel suggestions. There’s lots of freely accessible stuff on-site but you might consider pushing the boat out for a digital subscription that gives access to archive material at little over £10. I always pick up a printed copy on my visits to read on planes/in airport lounges, available at all supermarkets.

I would also trawl Amazon with a search phrase like “South Africa Road” or “Western Cape Road” or “Garden Route Road” which throws up a range of road atlases and tourist travel guides and invest in one or more to read and do some planning in advance. I have several and they are invaluable repositories of phenomenal information, although often too heavy to lug with you so take photos of especially relevant pages on your mobile phone for later reference.

I’ve done several SA road trips with my family when the children were younger and their grandparents still alive, and always mapped out road distances and type of road on a spreadsheet before hand to get an idea of what was comfortably achievable in a day. I assume an average speed of 90km/h on National roads (N prefix, speed limit usually 120km/h) and 75-80km/h on Regional roads (R prefix, speed limit usually 100km/h or 80km/h when passing through towns/villages) and 3.5 to 4.5 hours’ driving can be comfortably achieved in a day. Your hire car must have aircon as a minimum. By law, car hire companies may not limit daily mileage to foreign tourists so unlimited mileage is always included in the price – good thing as distances between settlements are vaster than UK but usually with higher average driving speeds.

Fuel price is fixed monthly by the Government regardless of whether or not you fill up at a one-horse town or a major highway service stop. Due to state price fix and good competition, service stops have to compete on quality of product and service provided and standards are generally good. All fuel stops now accept major credit cards, avoiding the need for travelling with cash. On pulling into any service station you’ll be greeted by a “petrol jockey” as your car will be refuelled for you, as well as windscreen washed and oil check if desired. You needn’t leave your driving seat, and there’s no extra charge for the service, but a R20 cash tip (around £1) is always gratefully received. Ask if they take Amex first thing because if they do, they usually need to use a different, dedicated card reader often only one per entire service station. Ensure they bring card reader to you rather than let your card out of your sight. I always insist on using PIN (rather than contactless) when using Ccard abroad, just to be on the safe side. Fuel prices for one month ahead can be found online which helps when budgetting.

Service stops are well marked on Google Maps esp if you search for “Engen one stop”, “Shell ultra city” or “Caltex star stop” which are the big three (although latter is going through an Astron Energy rebranding exercise currently).

Consult AA road traffic watch a couple of weeks ahead of your departure date to identify scheduled road works.

Sadly, if you’re a Marriott member, the hotel loyalty program has recently been significantly diluted at Protea Hotels in South Africa. Personally I find Protea Hotels a decent mid-brand offering and there are some very pleasant offerings along the Garden Route. Google the alternative loyalty program designed specifically for locals called Prokard Explorer. Good, regular information about some decent special offers if you get onto their mailing list, and I would seriously consider signing up ahead of a two-week-plus stay in SA as you may get a decent return on a fairly modest membership fee if you plan your hotel stays judiciously.

Also consider signing up to the Wild Card at http://www.sanparks.org which isn’t cheap for foreigners but does reduce entry and daily conservation fees when overnighting in the many National Parks. Addo Elephant is a good shout for a night or two, as is Tsitsikamma/Garden Route, Bontebok and West Coast National Parks (plus the flora-only offerings of Agulhas and Table Mountain). The sanparks landing page has an Explore Parks section with visual map flag when you click on one of the list of parks and you’d be surprised to see how many are located in the Western Cape region.

We spent a wonderful few days in the West Coast National Park before Covid in basic but perfectly adequate accommodation in areas of stunning natural beauty and populated by groups of impressive Eland bulls (the world’s largest species of antelope) with their small harems of cows in tow.

Lots of nice wine estates and offerings, much of which has already been mentioned. Some hidden gems northwest of Cape Town in the Swartland region and also further east than the traditional big three (Stellenbosch, Paarl & Franschhoek) in the Robertson region. Both well worth a one-day (or more) trip. Consider a stay in the iconic Lord Milner Hotel in Matjiesfontein, and if you do stray that far into the Karoo be sure to order flame-grilled karoo lamb chops paired with a bottle of Pinotage. The sheep season themselves by feeding on karoo scrub, but beware, lamb chops will never taste as good anywhere else in the world after that.

Beaches will be great to lie on and sunbathe (responsibly) especially when sheltered from the breeze, but sea temps will only be around mid teens, so ideal for a quick bracing dip to cool off and re-heat in the sunshine, but unlikely to be a place to languish unless you’re wearing a wetsuit. I’m afraid the days of enjoying sun-downers on the beach as I did many times in my student days are long gone. Best to depart from beaches and isolated viewing point venues while still daylight and congregate instead in commercial venues with other revellers.

Visit Kirstenbosch Gardens especially if you have children in tow, or the Naval Museum in Simonstown. Cape Town aquarium is also not bad. Drive back from Simonstown on the M4 (towards Muizenberg) at least once, and turn off onto the “upper” coast road the M75 at Kalk Bay. It runs parallel to the lower coast road (M4) until around Muizenberg. Great views of False Bay, but look out for the various little restaurants enroute clinging to the Silvermine mountain-side. You can be guaranteed that any venue that has vehicles parked outside sporting “diving” or “surfing” insignia or bumper stickers will offer good quality grub and grog at decent prices, otherwise locals would go elsewhere to fill up and warm up after a stint in the chilly ocean.

Nice quiet time of year too without any public holidays or family-sized holiday-makers, I’ve no doubt you will have a whale of a time, although you’ll miss the August height of the whale calving season – nevertheless a visit to Hermanus and other venues along the coastline of Walker Bay is a must, not to be missed.