I ♥ Brenton on Sea Because ...

I ♥ Brenton on Sea

Hi, I’m Derrik from Brenton Beach House in Brenton on Sea on the Garden Route.

Brenton on Sea IS BEST KNOWN FOR its tran­quil­lity and long sandy beaches.

GET YOUR PICTURE TAKEN AT Castle rock or on Fishermans walk. See the best sun­sets all within a few minutes from the Brenton Beach House.

THE BEST sun­set PICTURES CAN BE TAKEN FROM the Fishermans walk.

OTHER HAPPY SNAPS AT the Brenton Blue but­ter­flies or the Fynbos flowers. Continued

I ♥ George Because ...

I ♥ George

Hi, I’m Jenny from Avocet House in George up the Garden Route.

George IS BEST KNOWN FOR its beau­ti­ful moun­tains, fam­ous golf courses and nearby beaches is the centre of the Garden Route, It has a great tem­per­ate cli­mate. Its a town that has some­thing for everyone.

GET YOUR PICTURE TAKEN AT Dolphin Point at Kaaimans Corner. This has a stun­ning view over the sea at Wilderness and the old Railway bridge across which the Choo choo used to run before the line was washed away by floods.

THE BEST scenic PICTURES CAN BE TAKEN FROM the Power Van, which runs on the rail­way line between George and Oudtshoorn. Wonderful views over­look­ing George and the sea to Mossel Bay. 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

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

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

Knysna Oyster Festival 2010 countdown begins ...

With less than a month to go until the 2010 Pick n Pay Knysna Oyster Festival kicks off, organ­isers say that the fest­ival is expec­ted to attract thou­sands of sports­men and women, food lov­ers and party goers to Knysna this July.

Jonathan Ackerman, mar­ket­ing dir­ector of Pick n Pay Retail, said that he is delighted with the way the fest­ival has grown since Pick n Pay became involved as nam­ing spon­sors in 2004. “At the time we said we would assist to add value and grow the fest­ival and, in doing so, make a worth­while con­tri­bu­tion to local eco­nomic devel­op­ment, because Pick n Pay is com­mit­ted to sup­port­ing events which bene­fit the local com­munity and local char­it­ies. 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

Wild Olive Guest Farm near Stilbaai

Wild Olive Farm

We're no strangers to Wild Olive Guest Farm. We're one of many who return to this peace­ful refuge where a couple of chalets and a cot­tage lie on the banks of the Goukou River estu­ary and a wild organic veget­able garden, set in amidst a series of olive groves, is the main­stay of a bust­ling break­fast and lunch time venue that attracts a con­stant stream of vis­it­ors from Stilbaai ...

The main reason people head out here, other than the food, which alone is reason to visit, is Hazel. Hazel is a per­son­al­ity of note. She beams, bustles and con­stantly expounds about her pas­sion for per­ma­cul­ture. It's rather like being on the set of a Jamie Oliver shoot I would ima­gine. Continued