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If you have more than two days to spare on your travels, add a West Coast excursion to your Cape Town stay and enter a world of fishing villages and agricultural towns, animals past and present, and landscapes dramatically wild or pleasantly charming.
- Take the R27 motorway from Cape Town northwards, and then the R307 towards Darling in the Swartland, nestled between vineyards and wheatfields. If the flower season has started (July to October), you’re in for a colourful treat as local fynbos carpets the land.
- There are a number of wine cellars in the vicinity offering tastings, and you may catch a glimpse of Evita Bezuidenhout (the South African version of Dame Edna Everage) played by well-known actor Pieter-Dirk Uys, who has made Darling his home and enhanced it with an off-beat touch.
- Now make your way down to the coast via the R315. At Yzerfontein, a popular haunt for birders, you may spot a whale that has dropped by to calve.
- Keep an eye out for marine and avian life as you move up the coast, now in the West Coast National Park, travelling by the scenic Langebaan Lagoon and Saldanha Bay. There’s plenty of accommodation in either of these two places, so consider dropping anchor here for the night. If your dinner choice presents a quandary, remember that you are in the heart of the crayfish (rock lobster) industry.
- Change direction on your second day and head inland on the R45 for the rich fossil fields of the West Coast Fossil Park. The 200 different kinds of fossils found here reveal that West Coast animal life was once very different and included sub-Saharan bears and three-toed horses. Guided 40-minute tours are offered every hour with a 1½ hour main tour at 11.30am daily.
- Your paleontological education done, it’s back to the R27, heading in a northern direction for Lamberts Bay. On your journey of an hour or so, watch out for old-world fishing villages like Jacobsbaai, Paternoster, St Helena Bay and Stompneus Bay. Note that towards the end of your journey you will travel on gravel roads.
- There are two musts for the visitor to Lamberts Bay. First, tuck into a seafood feast of crayfish, snoek and mussels, preferably at one of the open-air beach restaurants such as Muisbosskerm or Bosduifklip. The other must-do is to view the thousands of seabirds, particularly gannets and cormorants, covering the surface of Bird Island.
- It’s Day Three and time to investigate the lunar-like rock landscapes of the Cedarberg Wilderness Area, south of Lamberts Bay, with its hiking paths, rock art caves, rock climbing and river rafting. There is a range of accommodation in this nature reserve; alternatively, you can base yourself in the town of Clanwilliam.
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Clanwilliam is one of the 10 oldest towns in South Africa, and a walkabout will lead you to buildings that date back to the 1860s. This is rooibos (of the healthy rooibos tea fame) country, and you can tour a rooibos farm or the local factory. The impressive Clanwilliam Dam offers angling and other recreational amenities.
- Your trip back to Cape Town via the N7 is a journey of some 230km, with many options for picturesque breaks along the way. Try Citrusdal with its citrus orchards and vineyards, or Piketburg, where the view from the top of the Versveld Pass is awesome, or Moorreesburg, with its well presented Koringbedruif wheat museum.
Swop seafood and surf, for steak and turf – a 2 hour flight from Cape Town will deliver you to vibrant Johannesburg or little gem, Nelspruit – the capital of the magical Mpumalanga province.
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