Our adventures on the garden route, from the Cango Caves to the Mysterious Forests of the Diepwalle Section within the Knysna Forest, warm water beaches, river estuaries and remarkable landscapes.
The SANParks Natures Valley Rest Camp in the Tsitsikamma section of the Garden Route National Park is situated in the De Vasselot Nature Reserve on the banks of the Groot River, approximately 30 km from the town of Plettenberg Bay and 40 km from Storms River Rest Camp. This birdwatcher’s paradise offers numerous day trails, and guests can also enjoy canoeing, swimming, or sailing. The Natures Valley Beach is a great spot for surfing, swimming and sun tanning.
The De Vasselot Rest Camp offers accommodation in 10 Forest Huts, each with two single beds and fitted with standard 3-point electric plugs. Each hut has its own braai facility. The Forest Huts have access to a shared communal well-equipped kitchen and ablution facilities. There are also two semi-detached Chalets, each sleeping three guests and having its own bathroom, fully equipped kitchen, and living area.
The rest of the camp also offers 65 campsites, surrounded by indigenous forest. They are all set in the shade and shelter of magnificent indigenous trees.
The communal ablution facilities have electric geysers, and the main ablution facility has two coin-operated washing machines and tumble dryers.
The village has a shop, restaurant, and pub where essential commodities may be purchased. Reception can rent canoes.
Our Story and Adventures on the Garden Route, Nature’s Valley, is a bird watchers’ and hikers’ paradise.
Embarking on a rejuvenating escape from the frenetic pace of urban life, we found solace and adventure along South Africa’s captivating Garden Route. With careful planning earlier in the year, we curated an itinerary to indulge our passion for pristine Indigenous forests, invigorating hikes, and the serenity of birdwatching amidst nature’s splendour.
Our journey commenced amidst the ancient marvels of the Cango Caves near Oudtshoorn, a town steeped in history and charm. From there, we ventured to the tranquil SANParks Diepwalle Camping Decks, nestled deep within the Knysna Forest—an idyllic setting resonant with the melodious calls of forest birds.
Armed with a checklist of avian treasures and a full agenda of nature pursuits, we eagerly immersed ourselves in the verdant foliage. Our time at Diepwalle was punctuated with moments of triumph, including a memorable sighting of the elusive African Emerald Cuckoo and fleeting encounters with Trogons, their iridescence shimmering amidst the forest’s dappled light.
Transitioning to The Forest Edge, a luxurious cabin aptly positioned on the edge of the SANParks Gouna forest, we revelled in the comforts of our retreat. Days were spent amidst towering Californian Redwoods, exploring trails like Jubilee Creek and venturing to nearby natural reserves such as Feather Bed and Buffels Bay.
Saving the best for last, we settled into the SANParks De Vaselot Rest Camp, nestled amongst towering giants along the Touw River. Here, in a tranquil forest hut, we delighted in sightings of the majestic Knysna Lourie and agile Kingfishers darting along the water’s edge. Our quest for the elusive Half-Collared Kingfisher culminated in a triumphant discovery during a captivating hike to the Salt River mouth—a moment cherished amidst the dawn chorus.
Our journey concluded with an exhilarating kayak excursion through the rugged river gorge of Tsitsikamma, a breathtaking part of the renowned Garden Route National Park. As we navigated pristine waters framed by towering cliffs, we were left in awe of the untamed beauty that defines this coastal sanctuary.
Reluctantly bidding farewell, we journeyed homeward to Cape Town, enriched by encounters such as a fleeting sighting of a Long Crested Eagle near George, capturing its graceful flight against the backdrop of distant hills.
Reflecting on our sojourn, we acknowledge the challenges inherent in forest birding—our subjects’ subdued light, dense foliage, and elusive nature. Yet, the rewards were abundant: capturing the African Emerald Cuckoo in its natural habitat, observing the courtship rituals of Narina Trogons, and experiencing the timeless allure of Knysna. This journey has left an indelible mark, affirming Knysna as a cherished gem among South Africa’s natural wonders. Until our paths converge again, we carry with us the echoes of this enchanting haven—a testament to the restorative power of nature and the joy of exploration.
ABOUT DE VASSELOT NATURE RESERVE
Anyone who has been to Nature’s Valley, down the R210, over Thomas Bain’s Groot River Pass, and into the Groot River valley below will know the De Vasselot campsite, with its little forest huts along the riverfront in the shade of the forest trees.
Did you know?
When exploring the De Vasselot Nature Reserve, look out for otters, baboons and wetland birds.
De Vasselot Nature Reserve is part of the Tsitsikamma National Park. Nature’s Valley, the unpretentious holiday village, lies within De Vasselot and has never grown beyond the bounds of its one or two shops, holiday homes, and restaurants. Homes cannot rise above two storeys, and the pace has remained slow. The lagoon and the silence, stillness, and lack of commercialisation attract people here.
The reserve lies at the western end of the Tsitsikamma National Park. It takes its name from Comte Médéric de Vasselot de Regné, appointed Superintendent of Woods and Forests of the Cape Colony in 1880. This was the first time a professional forester held this position, a turning point for the country’s forestry, which had been exploited and unprotected until then.
De Vasselot Nature Reserve includes a coastal plateau that rises 300 metres above the sea, a rugged coastline with a beautiful, uninhabited beach, forested slopes, and indigenous forests covering almost two-thirds of the park. The lagoon is warm and perfect for canoeing, kayaking, and sailing.
A network of trails runs through the coastal scrub forest, high Indigenous forest, and fynbos. They include the Kalanderkloof Trail, Groot River Trail, Salt River Mouth Trail, Salt River via Keurpad, Varinghoek via Keurpad, and The Crags via Brak River—six trails that range from 5 km to 17 km in length.
Activities
Nature’s Valley is a bird watchers’ and hikers’ paradise.
Numerous day trails exist, such as the Salt River Mouth Trail, the Kalander Trail, and the Groot River Trail. A map and permit are available at Nature’s Valley Rest Camp (Tsitsikamma Section) Reception and the Nature’s Valley Village shop.
Canoeing from the rest of the camp to the Groot River mouth is the best way to unwind. Nature’s Valley Rest Camp (Tsitsikamma Section) rents canoes.
See the Park’s Activities for a comprehensive list.
Facilities
- A shop, restaurant/pub is located in the village where essential commodities may be purchased.
- Fuel is available at The Crags.
See the Park’s Facilities for a comprehensive list.
Visitor Tips
- The nearest garage or vehicle repair shop is Witelsbos, 30km from Storms River Mouth Rest Camp (Tsitsikamma Section).
- There are medical/hospital and pharmaceutical facilities at Kareedouw, 55km from Storms River Mouth Rest Camp (Tsitsikamma Section).
- There is a Post Office and police services at Storms River village, 13km from Storms River Mouth Rest Camp in the Tsitsikamma Section (a post box is available at the rest camp).
- Scuba divers must present valid certificates and supply their equipment. Scuba refill facilities are available at Storms River rest camp.
- The swimming pool at Storms River Mouth Rest Camp (Tsitsikamma Section) is reserved for resident guests only.
- Powerboats are not permitted on the river at Nature’s Valley.
5 Things To Seek
- Knysna Seahorse: This peculiar fish occurs only in the Knysna, Keurbooms and Swartvlei estuaries and nowhere else. Because of its limited distribution, the Knysna Seahorse is listed as endangered on the IUCN’s Red List – the first seahorse in the world to be listed as endangered. Hint: Visit the SANParks Thesen Island Office in Knysna to view the Knysna Seahorse up close!
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Big Tree: Also known as the King Edward VII tree, this famous landmark and visitor attraction near Diepwalle Forest Station is another Outeniqua yellowwood worth seeing up close. The tree is 800+ years old.
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The Forest Legends Museum: If you venture into the mysterious Knysna Forest, you will find, at its heart, the Forest Legends Museum. This museum houses stories about Woodcutters, Timber merchants, Botanists, Settlers, and the elusive Knysna Elephant. The museum reveals some of the forest’s best-kept secrets and showcases the famous elephant skeleton.
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Knysna Dwarf Chameleon: This forest dweller is the master of camouflage. It is a species of dwarf chameleon that is endemic to South Africa. During the day, it climbs high into the forest canopy to bask and then sleeps in the centre of tree ferns at night, coiling its prehensile tails to look like fern fronds.
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Elephant Walks: These three trails are a scenic delight with clear streams and mysterious green beauty. They follow old woodcutter trails in some parts, taking the hiker past some stately old Outeniqua yellowwood trees. Please choose between the moderate White Elephant Trail with its enticing rock pools, the easy Black Elephant Trail, or the moderate to rugged Red Elephant Trail.
The story of the Knysna Forests – from exploitation to conservation
Even before people started harvesting them, indigenous, evergreen forests were a rarity in South Africa. Today, the Knysna Forests – the country’s largest forest complex – cover only about 568 square kilometres.
“The predominant geology is quartzite, shale, schist, conglomerate and dune sand…
“The soils of these forests are generally acidic and nutrient-poor. Much of the Knysna forest occurs on gentle to moderate slopes, ranging from 5 m to 1,220 m above sea level, with a mean of 240 m…
“Rain falls throughout the year in the region, with maxima in early and late summer. Mean daily maximum and minimum temperatures in the Knysna [area] are 23.8 °C in February (summer) and 18.2 °C in August (winter)… Annual rainfall varies … from 525 mm to 1220 mm in the Knysna forest… Rainfall appears to be the primary environmentally limiting factor of forest extent, as forest cannot persist in areas with rainfall of less than 500 mm.” worldwildlife.org
Archaeological evidence shows that people have lived in the Southern Cape for tens of thousands of years, and archaeologists working in Knysna have uncovered evidence that stretches back to the Earlier and Middle Stone Ages.
In more recent times the Khoekhoen people, who lived in the Garden Route in pre-colonial days, would leave verbal clues as to the forests’ importance in their lives, livelihoods, and even aesthetic sensitivities: Outeniqua, for example, means Honey Gatherers, Hessequa = Men of the Trees, Tsitsikamma = bright waters, and Knysna = ferns, according to Prof. Mike de Jongh, author of, ‘A forgotten First People – The Southern Cape Hessequa.’
Of course, as Prof. de Jongh points out, those earliest people lived only lightly on the land and left only faint traces of themselves – which might explain why we know so little about them, or, it would follow, about the forests.
When the first Dutch settlers established an outpost of the Vereenigde Oostindische Compagnie (VOC or Dutch East India Company) in South Africa in 1652 – on the site of present-day Cape Town – they needed a steady supply of timber for their buildings to burn as fuel, and (later) for raw materials for furniture, tools, wagons, shipbuilding, and so on. However, they found only a relatively small forest on the slopes of Table Mountain, which was quickly depleted, so the search for more began.
At first, the colony imported timber from Mauritius, but that supply line dried up when the VOC station was closed in 1709. This led to a series of investigations and journeys of exploration into the regions west and east of the Cape and, eventually, the establishment of various outposts in the Overberg region in the vicinity of present-day Riviersonderend. (See Ryno Joubert, ‘History of the Overberg and Southern Cape Forests: pre-modern history to 1795’ – pdf. Embedded below.)
That experiment wasn’t a great success, though – possibly because the Overberg Forests weren’t very extensive, either – and in 1734, Governor J. de la Fontaine visited the Garden Route – then known as Outeniqualand – in search, in a manner of speaking, of greener pastures.
Here, he found probably around 250,000 hectares of magnificent timber – and by 1763, the colonists had begun to exploit it systematically (and at first indiscriminately).
Even more than the Overberg, though, Outeniqualand was a region of deep gorges and high mountains – with no formal access roads – and transporting the timber to the Cape was costly and slow.
But then George Rex – a functionary at the Cape under British rule – bought the farm Melkhoutkraal on the banks of the Knysna River in 1804. (It was near the present-day industrial area and the Knysna Golf Club).
Of course, Rex had already seen the forests’ commercial potential, and he immediately began lobbying the Colonial Government to establish a harbour at Knysna so that he could move his timber more quickly and efficiently.
The government declared the Knysna River Estuary (Knysna Lagoon) a port in 1817. In 1818, the Emu was sent to attempt to enter The Heads – although nobody had ever navigated the mouth before. It was almost inevitable: she landed wrecked on a submerged rock close to the Eastern Head. Two months later, HMS Podargus arrived to salvage her, and – taking the (now known to be correct) – Western passage, crossed safely into the Lagoon.
And finally, we knew that the Knysna River could be used as a harbour.
The narrow navigable channel, strong tides, and shallowness of the Lagoon made conditions unsuitable for shipping. Still, the local economy managed to grow—sometimes steadily, sometimes in fits and starts—throughout the 19th Century.
And it was the timber that underpinned the economy that made those shipping hazards worth the risk.
By the early years of the 20th Century, though, shipping was no longer fast enough or cheap enough, and – as it was doing throughout the country – the Government decided to extend the railway service to Knysna, opening the George-Knysna branch line in 1928.
By then, though, it had already become clear that the local indigenous forests were anything but infinite and that they needed protection.
An alternate was needed, and a programme of planting exotic trees – pines and gums – had been instituted some years earlier. By the 1930s, they were ready for harvesting.
In 1934, then, the local woodcutters – who’d lived in the forests and (barely) survived off them by selling their timber to the saw millers – were stripped of their rights to fell the trees, and Knysna’s indigenous forests were closed entirely for harvesting until 1967. Many of the woodcutters went to work for the Department of Forestry, while others were pensioned off under the Woodcutters Annuities Act No. 11 of 1939.
Today, the forests that survived nearly 200 years of exploitation form the backbone of the 160,000-hectare Garden Route National Park—and they remain one of Knysna’s most important attractions.
Visit the Park for walking, hiking, picnics, mountain biking, tree spotting, and birding—and perhaps to catch a glimpse of the world’s last free-roaming elephants (this is an unfenced National Park, and yes, it does protect a small herd of them).
Tree species
Trees characterise the Knysna Forests like:
- Outeniqua yellowwood (Podocarpus falcatus) – these are the big trees of the Knysna Forests and often tower over the other species in the forest canopy
- Real yellowwood (Podocarpus latifolius)
- Stinkwood (Occotea bullata)
- White pear (Apodytes dimidiata subsp. dimidiata)
- Terblans beech (Faurea macnaughtonii), and
- Assegai (Curtisia dentata)
The Tsitsikamma Section of the Garden Route National Park is at the heart of the picturesque tourist region, the Garden Route, found in the Southern Cape of South Africa. Tsitsikamma is a Khoisan (early inhabitants of the area) word meaning “place of much water”.
The Park incorporates 80 km of rocky coastline with spectacular sea and landscapes, a remote mountainous region with secluded valleys covered in mountain Fynbos, and temperate high forests with deep river gorges leading down to the sea.
The Tsitsikamma Section protects a wonderland of inter-tidal and marine life. This is one of the largest single units ‘no take’ (including fishing) Marine Protected Areas (MPA) in the world, conserving 11 per cent of South Africa’s Temperate South Coast rocky shoreline and provides a ‘laboratory’ for fisheries baseline research on endangered line fish species. In 1964, when it was proclaimed, it became the first Marine National Park to be proclaimed in Africa.
The Tsitsikamma Section has a long history of Marine and Forest utilisation. Most of the local communities mainly relied on these two ecosystems to survive in one form or another. The previous resource utilisation was obvious economic value gained from the region and is now incorporated into the Park. Today, the National Park contributes differently to the region’s economic development. Tsitsikamma National Park attracts tourists to the region, provides economic opportunities for local entrepreneurs (local trail guides, adventure operators, transport services, infrastructure development & maintenance services, etc.), and, as an implementing agency for poverty relief programmes, creates employment and training opportunities for some of the regions poverty-stricken communities. Currently, two nationally running, poverty relief programs, namely Working for Water (Invasive Plant Clearing) and Coasts Care (Coastal Conservation) are operated within the Park.
The Tsitsikamma Section incorporates various cultural heritage sites ranging from Khoisan cultural heritage sites such as caves, shell middens and rock art to more recent cultural and historical sites such as the ruins of small fisher settlements, remnants of the past forestry industries and grave sites. The park is embarking on a Cultural Mapping project to identify and protect all Cultural Heritage sites incorporated within the Park. An Oral History Collection project is currently being implemented to recover and interpret information relating to cultural heritage. The more recent history of the forestry and fishing industries that is still in the memories of older folk from the region is the one thing that strongly connects local communities with the park and can enhance park-community relations. These processes will be developed and implemented with local community members and organisations representing community interests, relevant academic institutions and researchers.
During the First World Conference on National Parks in Seattle in 1962, the World Conservation Union (IUCN) appealed to governments to establish marine parks and reserves. The National Parks Board responded by proclamating Tsitsikamma National Park.
The original Coastal and Forest National Parks were proclaimed in December 1964 by the then Minister of Forestry in conjunction with the Director of the National Parks Board (Government Gazette 1964). The original coastal park extended some 59 km between Groot River (east) (west of Oubosstrand) and Groot River (west) (at Nature’s Valley), and included the areas approximately 800m landward and 800m seaward of the low water mark (horizontal distance – contours ignored).
In September 1983, the seaward boundary of the park between the Groot River (east) and the Bloukrans River was extended to three nautical miles, and the remainder (Bloukrans to Groot River, west) changed to 0.5 nautical miles offshore. (Government Gazette 1983). The small Tsitsikamma Forest National Park was deproclaimed in 1989 (Government Gazette 1989), and the coastal park became known as the Tsitsikamma National Park (TNP). In December 1987, the De Vasselot Reserve (2561 ha) was added to the park (Government Gazette 1987). In April 1996, an extension of the seaward boundary was proclaimed as part of the Tsitsikamma National Park. This section extends from the Groot River (west) along the same seaward boundary to a point parallel to Grootbank and then back to the Groot River (west) along the high water mark.
After the original proclamation, contractual areas (Schedule Five National Parks) were added to this park. In March 1995, 382 and 444 and the remainder of erf 434 Nature’s Valley were added to Tsitsikamma as contractual areas. The farm Buitenverwachting was gazetted as a contractual National Park in 1996. In October 1991, Rand Mines Properties Ltd signed a 30-year lease for the neighbouring Soetkraal area (24 372 ha).
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