The Garden Route is South Africa's 300 Km coastline between Mossel Bay and Plettenberg Bay, and is one of South Africa's most popular holiday destinations. It reminded us of our previous drive down Highway 1 in California, rugged coastline, fab beaches and a million eateries and coffee shops. 

The Garden Route had many options of where to stay so we did as much internet research and asking the locals in order to find the best bits.  The drive down was also very scenic, Bavarian or Austrian looking alps on one side and the Indian Ocean on the other. Sadly the pre-xmas roadwork push meant it took is 6 hours to drive the 450 Km, but worth the pain to get there.

We ended up opting for Wilderness which is a small holiday resort with beautiful beaches.  It was actually super relaxing and chilled, the only miserable bits were forcing ourselves to go for a few runs having not done any exercise for 6-weeks.

Wilderness had a few small restaurants and many upmarket houses built into the cliffs over looking the estuary and beach. As it was totally safe to walk around, even at night, we took advantage of fab restaurants and fun pubs and rather like Simon's Town, we slightly over indulged.  It does seem the favorite past time of South Africa is eating fine food and drinking, so when in Rome  

One of the jewels of the Garden Route is the Tsitsikamma National Park which is an area of outstanding beauty. It is a remote mountainous region with secluded valleys covered in mountain Fynbos with deep river gorges leading down to the sea. We spent an afternoon hiking the main trail which crossed two or three wobbly suspension bridges back and forth over the Storm River mouth.

Our second stopover was a very remote beach side village called Oyster Bay. We managed to get a 4 bedroom self catering apartment 500 metres from a pristine white sandy beach for pence, so we took advantage and stayed a few nights.  What came free with the apartment was 3 attention seeking young collie dogs, whose owner was on business in Cape Town, so they moved in with us for a few days. We went for about 4 big walks on the 8 Km beach and we were the only ones on it.  The dogs were mental on the beach and believe it or not, they actually go into the sea and body surf the waves in. 

Five days on the Garden Route was about right for us time wise.  We tried to be fit and healthy but the life style of early eating in very good eateries, about half the price of UK, just draws you in. We managed a few runs but prob not enough to burn off the calories.  A typical dinner for two, starter, main course and two or three beers each comes in around £30 for both, and when the food is always very high quality, how can you not take advantage?