After the Sanlam Cape Town Marathon: Knysna

The Route: Cape Town → Knysna (2 nights) → George Airport Logistics: The N2 east, around 4.5 hours of driving. The alternative is a 50-minute flight from Cape Town to George and around an hour by road from there, which is what most people do on tired legs. Marathon Month: May Duration: 2 nights

Cape Town ──(≈50 min flight)──> George ──(≈1 hr by road)──> Knysna
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     └────────────(or ≈4.5 hrs by car on the N2)───────────────┘

Knysna sits at the mouth of a tidal lagoon about two thirds of the way along the Garden Route, with indigenous forest behind it and two sandstone cliffs, the Heads, standing either side of the channel where the lagoon meets the sea. It is the right distance from Cape Town to feel like a change and the right scale to move around slowly. Late May is autumn on this coast: mild, often clear, and outside both the December and the July holiday peaks.

The lagoon and the Heads

The lagoon is the town's organising fact. Boat trips run from the Waterfront across to the Heads and back, typically ninety minutes to a couple of hours, and they are flat, slow and exactly the speed you want. The Eastern Head has a road up it and a viewpoint over the channel, which is the standard photograph. The Western Head is a private nature reserve and access is limited.

Thesen Islands, connected to the town by a causeway, is a former timber site rebuilt as a low canal development and is a level walk of a couple of kilometres if you want distance without hills.

The forest

The Afromontane forest inland from Knysna is the largest remaining tract of indigenous forest in South Africa, with yellowwood and stinkwood trees that predate the timber industry that took most of the rest. SANParks maintains marked trails through sections of it around Diepwalle and Goudveld, north of the town, and several of them are short circuits on soft ground with very little climb. Ask locally which are open: sections close after fire or storm damage.

The Knysna elephants are part of the local story and, functionally, are not something you will see. Do not plan the day around them.

Plettenberg Bay

Plettenberg Bay is half an hour east on the N2 and has the beaches Knysna does not: long, open sand at Central Beach and Robberg. The Robberg Nature Reserve peninsula has a set of walks of different lengths, the shortest of which is manageable, and southern right whales come into this bay through the winter with the first arrivals sometimes showing from late May.

Where to Stay and Eat

Where to stay: The Knysna Waterfront and Leisure Isle are the two obvious bases, both flat and close to the water. Leisure Isle is quieter; the Waterfront puts the boat trips and most of the restaurants at the door.

Where to eat: Knysna oysters are farmed in the lagoon and served everywhere in town, which is the local thing to do whether or not you like oysters. The Waterfront has the concentration of restaurants; the places on Thesen Islands are calmer.

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