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

Beautiful, not-so-peaceful, Stilbaai

Stilbaai

Stilbaai, also known as Still Bay, is well known amongst Capetonians as a peace­ful, sea­side get­away on the Garden Route, per­fect for week­ends. It has, to a large degree, man­aged to main­tain an unspoiled and nat­ural envir­on­ment that is par­tic­u­larly beau­ti­ful dur­ing spring, with a pretty beach vil­lage atmo­sphere on the east­ern side of the vil­lage, and beau­ti­ful beaches.

But come here dur­ing the fest­ive sea­son, and you begin to won­der whether the res­id­ents may not have been a little hasty in call­ing their bay 'still'. It has become so pop­u­lar and so busy at this time of year that 'hec­tic' is prob­ably a more apt descrip­tion, and we were there before the major onslaught that hap­pens just before Christmas ... Continued

The Heath

We stumbled upon The Heath, the Garden Route's bohemian farm store, whilst on our way to Stilbaai from St Francis Bay. Now many of you may know about this fant­astic find, but I was imme­di­ately entranced by the stop and couldn't under­stand why no-one had bothered to inform me of what def­in­itely qual­i­fies as my 'best shop­ping exper­i­ence of the year' before!

It turns out that mostly every­one who travels this route knows about it. In fact my sis­ter has men­tioned it to me numer­ous times but usu­ally pre­faced with the words 'we stopped at this shop' whilst fore­go­ing the obvi­ously vital inclu­sion of its name – my sis­ter isn't that strong on names – hence my amazement at hav­ing missed out ... Continued

I ♥ Wilderness because ...

I ♥ Wilderness

Hi, I’m John McIldowie from Porcupine Pie Lodge in Wilderness in the Garden Route.
WILDERNESS IS BEST KNOW FOR its long golden beach, extens­ive lakes, water­ways and lush indi­gen­ous forests. That com­bined with cas­ual con­tin­ental side­walk res­taur­ants and a vil­lage atmo­sphere makes Wilderness the ideal base from which to enjoy the Garden Route.

GET YOUR PICTURE TAKEN AT Dolphin Point with the spec­tac­u­lar Wilderness Bay and kilo­metres of beach as a back­drop.
THE BEST PARAGLIDING PICTURES CAN BE TAKEN from the Map of Africa view­point.
WHEN THE WEATHER'S GOOD I LIKE TO get out and enjoy hik­ing along one of the numer­ous trails through indi­gen­ous forests or along the beach and cliffs that make up the coast line to the east of Wilderness. Or force myself to have 18 holes on one of the 14 chal­len­ging cham­pi­on­ship golf courses situ­ated within easy driv­ing dis­tance along the Garden Route ... Continued

A slumber in amongst the trees

Think of a child­hood dream of liv­ing in a tree­house, some­thing like the magic faraway tree, then add the fur­ther dimen­sion of hand­craf­ted wood interi­ors, fur­niture, a ten­ted bed­room, a wooden open-to-the-elements bath­room, com­plete with de luxe bath, and you have an idea of Teniqua Treetops.

Teniqua Treetops, in a nut­shell, is a col­lec­tion of eight simply beau­ti­ful, hand-crafted and eco-friendly tree­houses hid­den in amongst an indi­gen­ous forest in the Garden Route that boasts thousand-year-old trees, fair­ies, an array of birds, and breath­tak­ing views ... Continued

Breakfast at the Wild Oats Market

As far as food mar­kets go, the Wild Oats Market in Sedgefield on the Garden Route prob­ably comes up tops. Residents of Sedgefield and vis­it­ors to the town head out in their droves on a Saturday morn­ing to the edge of town right next to the Swartvlei lake-lagoon, where the mar­ket has a per­man­ent home under the trees.

The market's full name is the Wild Oats Community Farmers' Market and it has won numer­ous awards dur­ing its ten year life span. Whilst I'd heard only good things about the farm­ers' mar­ket, I hadn't yet had the oppor­tun­ity to visit it, but our road trip up to Hogsback had been con­veni­ently carved into a num­ber of stop­overs that included Sedgefield, and the mar­ket was one of the first to make its way onto the itin­er­ary ... Continued

The Outeniqua Powervan

Outeniqua Powervan

For any­one trav­el­ling through the scenic George / Knysna area, one of the attrac­tions is, or always has been, the Outeniqua Choo-Tjoe, one of the last remain­ing steam trains in Africa. However, many will be as dis­ap­poin­ted as we were to learn that the “Choo-Tjoe”, as she is affec­tion­ately known, has not run since June 2009.

So what does a fam­ily with two train-mad young boys do, to stem the dis­ap­point­ment? We were lucky to learn from the Transport Museum that some­thing called the Outeniqua Powervan was run­ning in its stead. Continued

The Outeniqua Country Hop

Outeniqua Country Hop

One could be for­given for think­ing that the ‘coun­try hop’ is some sort of quaint rural dance, but the Outeniqua coun­try hop in the Garden Route is a tour­ist route, ini­ti­ated by a group of local women to help put local trade in and around George on the map. The clever play on the term ‘hop’ was inspired by the abund­ance of hops grow­ing in the area, a plant used in the man­u­fac­tur­ing of beer, and unique to this region in South Africa.

We picked up signs for the Hop on the R404, as we drove out of George. With two young boys in tow, I was taken with the icon of the tractor, which accom­pan­ies the hop signs, since a tractor ride in any guise would provide my boys with a lot of excite­ment! The icon how­ever appeared to be more of a sym­bol than a real­ity, although clearly much of the beau­ti­ful scenery through which one passes is work­ing farm­land. Continued