Gardens and Wildflowers of South Africa's Western Cape

Summary

South Africa is world renowned for its stunning scenery, cultural diversity, rich variety of wildlife and in particular its indigenous flora. Our tour is at a time when the wildflowers should be putting on a dazzling spring display and we will also enjoy a mixture of famous and private gardens, estates and vineyards.

Fly from London to Cape Town where we will be based for the first three nights. Here we will enjoy a cable car to the top of Table Mountain, whose flora encompasses some 1470 species including South Africa’s national flower, the Protea, and visit Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens, truly one of the world’s top gardens, where we will have an exclusive guided tour. We continue with a visit to the Cape of Good Hope Nature Reserve where we should see an array of wildflowers. We then begin our tour around the Western Cape by travelling north to the small town of Clanwilliam, where we see multitudes of wildflowers at the Ramskop Nature Reserve.

Our journey continues through the lesser known West Coast National Park and the small town of Darling. Wildflowers, wild birds, stunning scenery and wine tastings – all that is good about the Western Cape is there to be enjoyed. At Karoo National Botanical Gardens we will enjoy its wide variety of desert and semi-desert plants along with its large succulent collection. We will then wind our way at a relaxing pace via a most interesting charitable project at Flower Valley and thence to Hermanus and the coast once more. Here we hope to be in perfect time to see the spectacle of the Southern Right Whale migration. Our tour finishes on a high with a string of wonderful gardens around the Stellenbosch area including the Harold Porter Botanical Garden, Vergelegen, Helderberg, and Babylonstoren.

Our tour is led throughout by Colin Crosbie, former curator at RHS Wisley Garden, whose knowledge and enthusiasm will add greatly to our enjoyment.