The Garden Route

The view from the Garden Route road that leads East from Cape Town to Port Elizabeth along the Indian Ocean coastline

St. James, our point of origin

We spent today traveling across the splendid African coastline, leaving Cape Town behind for an adventure across South Africa. The Garden Route road leads East from Cape Town and travels directly amid the Indian Ocean and coastal mountains. The path along Africa’s Southernmost coast follows the steep montane slopes as they chart parallel to the shore. The mountain ridges amend the horizon to divulge an erratic and jagged line of peaks with serrated rims. The mountain line is backlit by a soft blue sky marbled with thin clouds. The mountains seem to stand as silent sentinels protecting the magnificent coast of Africa. The coastal beauty flourishes with bright flowers, deep emerald hills, and rises and valleys studded with pale boulders that glisten in the winter sun. If there is any place on Earth where the Garden of Eden would exist, it is here. After all, some of the oldest hominid remains were found in South Africa.

Coastal mountains

Try spotting all the penguins here

The beginning of the journey intersected through the wine country, a place completely evocative of Southern France. Enchanting vineyards and picturesque cottages flecked the vibrant green low-rising hills. Our path then led ephemerally along the coastal bluffs and rocky cliffs that plunge into the Indian Ocean. The red African dirt, turquoise sea, and green hues of the fynbos native Cape vegetation were utterly captivating. The coastal cliffs rose abruptly from the water and were tilted at peculiar angles presumably from tectonic movement. The faded-orange rocks were patterned with undulating striations, as if God had used an enormous paintbrush to decorate the rock faces. The effects of cumulative oceanic currents were evident in the disintegrated rock forms along the shore that looked like conspicuous pillars and columns. Along those rocky shores, we stopped for a moment to observe one of the largest African Penguin breeding colonies in the world. Hundreds of the gregarious flightless birds waddled along the rocks and basked in the warm morning sun. Monogamous pairs of penguins worked together to raise fluffy, demanding chicks. A flock of cormorants nested on rocky pillars nearby.

African penguins

Hermanus

We made one more stop along the coast at the whale-watching capital of the world, Hermanus, before the road began to head inland for a few hours. The landscape inshore was no less impressive than the coast. The terrain opened up into valleys of green farmlands and pastures with grazing herds of sheep. We passed fields of bright mustard flowers, contrasting radiantly with the blue mountains. Aloe plants blossoming with tall orange inflorescences lined the roadsides with color. Meticulously planted crop fields carved twisted furrows in the earth. We passed flocks of ostriches, looking curiously like gigantic feathered dinosaurs running across the hills. 

Mustard fields

Sunset in Knysna

Eventually, the road crested at a superb vista overlooking the vast ocean. We followed the coastline once more. The hills rose higher and higher as we reached the shore. The vegetation became reminiscent of California chaparral and coastal scrub and, for a moment, I felt like I was back on the Central Coast. The road led through a patch of deeply forested hills contiguous with the sea and we kept our eye on the horizon for calving whales and dolphins. We continued along the Garden Route through Monterey Pine and Blue Gum plantations, making the densely vegetated hills feel oddly like another familiar world. We could glimpse the smooth ocean in the spaces between hills. We passed through small European-esque coastal villages with pastel-painted houses stacked up along the hillsides, the front windows facing the sea. As we made a momentary rest stop in the harbor town of Knysna, the sun set behind the mountains, illuminating the clouds with shades of gold. We walked around Knysna, a charming upscale town with harbor canals dividing rows of chic shops and seashore restaurants.

It was only a few more kilometers until we reached our destination in Plettenberg Bay. We pulled into a charming guest house where we unloaded in a suite of two bedrooms, kitchen, and bathroom. We spent the evening venturing into town to explore. Plettenberg, a coastal African town, oddly reminded me of a European ski village with the enchanting shops lining a main road. It is a quaint and quiet place. We found a small take-out restaurant run by a delightful couple for a dinner of seafood and peri-peri chicken before heading in for the night. 

            The only perplexing things of the day were the chaotic slums we sporadically encountered mixed in between the primarily white towns. We would find ourselves abruptly surrounded by tin shanties, trash piles, and soiled children. The shacks would extend beyond the hills, choking the landscape with claustrophobic human presence and trading the vibrant green flora for gray and brown filth. The slums would flicker by as we sped past and vanish just as suddenly as they had come, almost forgotten and concealed in such a resplendent landscape.