The Otter Trail in photographs

The Otter Trail

The Otter Trail is one of South Africa’s most well-known hik­ing trails, pop­u­lar with both loc­als and inter­na­tional vis­it­ors thanks to its incred­ible scenery. The trail starts at the Storms River mouth and ends at Nature’s Valley in the beau­ti­ful Tsitsikamma Nature Reserve on the Garden Route.

Our team of 5 hikers recently "did" the Otter Trail — here­with a pre­view of their exper­i­ence in pho­to­graphs. We look for­ward to bring­ing you a series of art­icles about the 41 kilo­metre, 5 day hike which changes in elev­a­tion from sea level to about 150m above.

Though only 42.5 kms long, it is not an easy trail. It is how­ever, well worth the per­sever­ance ... Continued

Pezula hosts free rugby coaching clinic for local kids

Pezula’s Field of Dreams came alive on Wednesday (17 November) as scores of local young rugby hope­fuls arrived to meet some of their rugby her­oes and attend a free hour and a half coach­ing clinic.

This was part of The JAG Foundation’s Big Boy Scooterthon (15–21 November), which saw three Provincial Super 15 Players, Nick Koster, Tiger Bax and Tim Whitehead, trav­el­ling 1000 kms from Cape Town to Pezula and back on Big Boy scoot­ers. Along the way they stopped to host four coach­ing clin­ics for pre­vi­ously dis­ad­vant­aged kids. Continued

Tenikwa — Spots and stripes

Tenikwa Wildlife

One of those dif­fi­cult to spot spe­cies in the bush is the cats, or to be more spe­cific, those ever elu­sive leo­pard and chee­tah. So pay­ing a visit to the Tenikwa Wildlife Awareness Centre, just out­side Plettenberg Bay is a priv­ilege to which I am look­ing forward.

Having been relieved of my hand­bag (one can only carry cam­eras into the enclos­ures), we embarked upon our one-hour tour at 09h30, with our two little boys in hand. The centre is open from 09h00 and tours depart every half hour to 16h30. Our first stop appeared to be the good old domestic cat, only on a far grander scale, and can weigh up to 6.5kg. Continued

Geoffrey Murray joins Justin Bonello on "Cooked — Out of the Frying Pan"

This month Zachary’s Executive Chef, Geoffrey Murray, will appear in an epis­ode of Season IV’s Cooked with Justin Bonello on DStv’s BBC Lifestyle channel.

The epis­ode shows Geoffrey Murray and his team with Justin in Zachary’s kit­chen at Pezula Resort Hotel & Spa in Knysna, pre­par­ing and cook­ing some of the dishes from Zachary’s menu, includ­ing seed loaf, green tomato rel­ish, octopus carpac­cio and salami.

The focus of the series is to show how Justin, who has made his name cook­ing in the out­doors, copes with work­ing in a formal kitchen.

After three sea­sons of Cooked, and hav­ing pub­lished the first Cooked in Africa cook­book, Justin will be seen cook­ing in top haute-cuisine styled eat­er­ies and fam­ily res­taur­ants where he attempts to mas­ter or at least gain insight into a smor­gas­bord of cook­ing styles from around the globe. Continued

The sanctuary of gentle giants

Elephant Sanctuary

I am not one to often visit the vari­ous reserves and wild life centres that have sprouted up near pop­u­lar hol­i­day des­tin­a­tions. We have always pre­ferred spot­ting wild­life in their more ‘nat­ural’ hab­itat, for example, the Kruger National Park, and tend to be scep­tical of the more ‘canned’ setups.

But with young boys, and a hol­i­day in Knysna and Plettenberg Bay on the Garden Route, we received an invit­a­tion to visit the Elephant Sanctuary at The Crags, in Plettenberg Bay. On arrival it is evid­ent that this is not your aver­age com­mer­cial ven­ture. As I waited to book in, I over­heard the recep­tion­ist gently answer a tele­phonic enquiry that ele­phant rid­ing is not the emphasis of the sanc­tu­ary, but rather Continued

Zachary’s at Pezula wins two top Diners Club Winelist Awards

Werner Wentzel

Zachary’s Restaurant at Pezula Resort Hotel & Spa, Knysna has received two top awards from the 2010 Diners Club Winelist Awards -  a Diamond Award and a joint award for the best winel­ist coun­try­wide which is shared with Bosman’s Restaurant at the Grande Roche in Paarl. The awards were handed out at a pres­ti­gi­ous event in Cape Town on Monday night, 13 September.

This is the third year run­ning that Zachary’s has won a Diamond Award for its winel­ist, but the first time it has received the top accol­ade for “Best Restaurant Winelist”. This year the res­taur­ant also won an Award of Excellence in recog­ni­tion of an out­stand­ing winel­ist from the American pub­lic­a­tion “Wine Spectator” for the fourth year in a row. Continued

Cango Wildlife Ranch — the real deal for sheer cuteness

Cango Wildlife Ranch

Tired of always being temp­ted to click on emails and Facebook links of cute kit­tens, pos­sums, koalas and other cuddly things, I decided to get the need to look at tiny bundles of fur out of my sys­tem by going straight to the source. Sure, LOLcats and digital pic­tures of hedge­hogs are great, but noth­ing beats the real deal for sheer cute­ness. A visit to the Cango Wildlife Ranch was in order. The ranch offers vis­it­ors an extraordin­ary and rare oppor­tun­ity to inter­act with hand-reared chee­tahs and to play with Bengal tiger cubs. I knew I would be in furry paradise ...

For the super adven­tur­ous and fear­less the ranch also offers cage diving with cro­codiles or the chance to wrap your­self in a python, great mucho excuses for going to look at the kit­ties. 3km from the charm­ing Karoo town of Oudtshoorn makes for a long-ish jour­ney from Cape Town, but it’s well worth the trip. Just make sure you take lots of pho­to­graphs ... Continued

Chatters in Knysna

Chatters in Knysna

We decided to have an early din­ner on our last night in Knysna so we could get back to our B&B in time for the clos­ing cere­mony of the soc­cer World Cup.  We were on our way to the Waterfront and passed a little place called Chatters — we hadn’t quite decided what we wanted to eat but it was cold and the sign for 'wood fired piz­zas' made our decision for us.  The res­taur­ant was empty (don’t take that as a bad sign; it was only 5pm!) and we were shown to a table slap bang next to a pot bel­lied stove — clearly the best table in the house!

We were fam­ished so didn’t waste any time order­ing our din­ner: a bur­ger for my hus­band and I chose a pasta.  The bur­ger arrived with proper, homemade chips and the patty was piled high with bacon, feta cheese and the other rel­ishes and top­pings that make a bur­ger a great bur­ger! Continued

Bosuns Bar & Grill in Knysna

Bosuns in Knysna

We had the most deli­cious lunch on Sunday.  We spent the week­end in Knysna (for the mara­thon and Oyster Festival) and after cel­eb­rat­ing a bit too enthu­si­ast­ic­ally on Saturday were grate­ful for the dis­mal, grey, cold and rainy weather.  It elim­in­ated the chance of sight­see­ing and invited instead the oppor­tun­ity to relax!  By lunch time we were hungry so took a drive down to a pub over­look­ing the lagoon:  Bosuns Bar and Grill.

We were the first of the lunch cus­tom­ers (arriv­ing at 11.40am — a bit early) but the pub soon filled up and we were told that all tables in the din­ing area had been reserved.  We found a spot in the bar though and settled down with a pot of tea and enjoyed the warmth of the log fire blaz­ing in the fire­place. Continued

SA stars to shine at the Knysna Oyster Festival

What do Vanessa Haywood, Bruce Fordyce and Jonty Rhodes have in com­mon? They are all par­ti­cip­at­ing in vari­ous sport­ing events at this year’s Pick n Pay Knysna Oyster Festival which takes places from 2–11 July!

Actress, model and star of District 9, Vanessa Haywood will com­pete in the festival’s gruelling BIG 5 chal­lenge to raise money for The Starfish Foundation. She is cur­rently in the UK shoot­ing another movie, The Sweet Shop, and train­ing at the same time in pre­par­a­tion for tak­ing on five unique sport­ing chal­lenges – the Pick n Pay Weekend Argus Rotary Knysna Cycle Tour MTB and Road races, the Salomon Featherbed Trail Run presen­ted by Petzl, Duesouth XTERRA’s dual sports chal­lenge and the Pick n Pay Cape Times Knysna Forest Marathon. Continued

Oyster flavours and fun at this year’s Pick n Pay Knysna Oyster Festival

Whether you like to slurp them, chew them, eat them fresh or cooked, oysters will be a big part of this year’s Pick n Pay Oyster Festival (2–11 July)! There are plenty of oysters on the menu and lots of oyster events on the pro­gramme. Party in style at the Pick n Pay Knysna Oyster Festival’s premier culin­ary event, the Pick n Pay Oyster & Wine Mardi Gras presen­ted by Tabasco, on 7 July 2010.

Hosted by the Garden Route region of the South African Chefs Association, the Mardi Gras com­bines the skills of oyster cook­ing chefs with choice South African wines and bub­bly. This cel­eb­ra­tion of fla­vour and fun is not to be missed!

Organiser Gino Adriaensen says that the event will cel­eb­rate life, good food and the 20^th anniversary of the Oyster Cooking Competition. The event will be held in the Heineken® Pavilion at the Pick n Pay Knysna Oyster Festival Grounds in Waterfront Drive from 6pm till late and will serve up more than 16 000 oysters and 1200 litres of wine. Continued

ABC’s The Bachelor couple honeymoons at Pezula

The lux­ury, award-winning Pezula Resort Hotel & Spa in Knysna was the hon­ey­moon des­tin­a­tion of choice for pop­u­lar American new­ly­weds Jason Mesnick and Molly Malaney who met on the ABC show The Bachelor in 2009 dur­ing its 13^th sea­son, one of the most suc­cess­ful series of the show.

The couple recently spent sev­eral days of their romantic South African hon­ey­moon at Pezula as Mr & Mrs Mesnick fol­low­ing their celebrity wed­ding in California. Continued

A Leap of Faith at Bloukrans

Bloukrans Bungee

I like to play it tough and in my youth often said: “I’ll try any­thing once”. As I’ve got­ten older, I’ve become con­sid­er­ably less fear­less and when presen­ted with an oppor­tun­ity to put my money where my mouth is, I now find myself won­der­ing why I should do these adrenalin-generating activ­it­ies at all. Asking why leads to cold feet and excuses. So when we first drove past Bloukrans and the weather was a bit icky, the excuse won the day. We’d wait till the day we were leav­ing the Garden Route and see if the weather was a bit bet­ter. We didn’t want rain to “spoil” the experience.

Baloney! We were chicken and needed a few days to pre­pare ourselves.

Three days later, the dawn broke on an impossibly beau­ti­ful day and we were out of excuses. It was time to either ‘fess up to being chicken or take the plunge (lit­er­ally) ... Continued

New site for visitors to the glorious Garden Route

Garden Route

For vis­it­ors to the Garden Route, the newly redesigned and revamped Garden Route Accommodation site provides a valu­able guide for vis­it­ors, provid­ing all sorts of inform­a­tion to make plan­ning a trip to the Garden Route fun and easy to do.

Know where you are going? Then select your des­tin­a­tion and start plan­ning! Accommodation in the Garden Route is search­able by type (hotels, guests houses, bed & break­fasts or self cater­ing options), from budget to 5 star lux­ury. Once you've found the per­fect place to stay, all you need to do is decide just how to spend your leis­ure time... Continued