GUIDED TOUR with 14 overnight stays:
Cape Town, Cape Peninsula - Winelands - Klein Karoo - Garden Route - Indian Ocean - Port Elizabeth and Addo Elephant National Park




 

CAPE TOWN

In terms of biodiversity, the Garden Route is one of the most important nature reserves in the country and therefore, it does not only attract tourists - from home and abroad. In fact, this landscape along the coast of the Indian Ocean, is also an important, scientific research object of universities from all over the world. The diversity of this ecosystems of indigenous forests, coastal boondocks, natural water courses and lakes, as well as the fynbos vegetation along the coasts and sandy beaches, forms a unique mosaic of landscape and vegetation forms that has achieved world fame for it's extraordinary beautyness.

For science, because of its complex interactions between the different vegetation and landscape zones, the Garden Route is a critical, because sensitive research focus. The "Afromontane forest" of this region, together with the primeval forests near the coast, is the largest contiguous forest area in the whole of southern Africa - sometimes even with a closed canopy. The Afromontane Forests of this region, together with the primeval forests near the coast, form the largest contiguous forest area in the whole of southern Africa - some- times even with a closed canopy. The fynbos vegetation along the beaches is part of the Cape Floral Kingdom, the so-called "Capensis", whose unique botanical biodiversity is home to more than a fifth of all plant species on the African continent.

In the dense forest areas, the native game is not so easy to spot, whereas their tracks and droppings are almost everywhere. As larger game, the bush pig, the bushbuck, blue duikers, baboons and green vervet monkeys occur as well as predators - leopards and caracals.

The native bird species, such as the knysna loerie, the narina trogon, the olive thrush, the chorister robin-chat and cape robin-chat (belonging to the family of flycatchers / muscicapidae) as well as the white-starred robin, are difficult to spot in the dense vegetation. If you want to be able to see them, you should have good hearing that can also tell apart birdsongs.

Anyone who meanders through the primeval forests on hiking trails or in a paddle boat will come across tree species such as ironwood, yellowwood, white pear, stinkwood, cherrywood and cape beech. However, these tree species - apart from their familiar-sounding names - have neither too much to do with pears, nor with cherries or beeches.
In particularly damp areas, you will encounter huge tree ferns, various climbers (e.g. wild grape), tree orchids,  (such as old man’s beard and tree orchids), mosses, lichens and colour- ful fungi.
Although the entire region is considered to be part of the temperate "Mediterranean winter rain climate zone", you will find a greater botanical diversity in the forests and in the fynbos along the coast, than in most of the tropical primeval forests.
 

Due to the considerable damage to agriculture, the South African government decided in the twenties of the last century, to completely kill the entire elephant population in the region.But after a relatively short time, an initiative started from the public and also from many of the professional hunters and farmers affected, to put an end to this project.

At first it was almost exclusively private individuals who pooled money, bought an area of around two thousand hectares and built up a protected area there for the last eleven surviving elephants, which was later expanded several times.

This "Mentone Reserve" was proclaimed as the Addo Elephant National Park in 1931. In 1954, when there lived again 22 elephants in the park area, the then park manager Graham Armstrong fenced an area of 2,270 hectares with an elephant proof fence. Above all, the intention was to avoid conflicts with the surrounding farmers. This fence is still used by the park today is named after its initiator - as the "Armstrong Fence".

In 2004, about 350 elephants lived already in the park and in 2006 just over 400 elephants were counted. Thus, the national park reached it's ecologically justifiable maximum of elephants. In the long term, the Addo Elephant Park is to become the third largest park in South Africa and to grow to a size of 3,600 km².