Knysna, Western Cape

Knysna, along the scenic Garden Route

© South Africa Tourism

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If you’re looking for South Africans’ most popular town, go to the end of the Garden Route in the Western Cape to Knysna – the ‘elegant lagoon’. It’s easy to get the ‘Knysna Spirit’ as you drive in on the N2 Highway from Cape Town. The town is well developed, but you still feel you’re travelling in woodcutter country.

Knysna has, for many, become the pot of gold at the end of the Garden Route. It’s famed attraction is the Eastern and Western Heads, a cavenous expanse where many a ship has met its doom. Today the Featherbed Nature Reserve pays homage to the richness of fauna and flora that Knysna has to offer.

The Knysna Elephant Park is where you can interact with and feed the relocated jumbo families. It’s a favourite with the youngsters. If they’re still in the mood for a ‘creature feature’, then whip them down the N2 to Monkeyland for a visitation with some of the loveliest lemurs in southern Africa.

The dolphins and the southern right whales seasonally visit the shores of the Paradise Coast and you can go out to sea and find yourself in the middle of a 4 000-strong pod of common dolphins leaping through the waves. On the way back to land, visit the seals of the Robberg peninsula – an entertaining, if less graceful, sight.

Knysna is replete with various forms of accommodation to suit all pockets. You can stay on a houseboat on the lagoon, a forest lodge near the beach, a log cabin in the forest, a Cape Cod-style mansion, a bustling hotel on the main road or one of the many guest houses listed.