Garden Route (Guided)

Seven nights in a loop from Cape Town, guided, on sealed road throughout with an evening game drive included.

This is the guided version of the road-only Garden Route tour, with a riding guide out front and a support vehicle behind, which for a route this straightforward is about company and local knowledge rather than navigation. The price difference against the self-guided version is a few hundred pounds.

Chapman’s Peak Drive comes first, cut into the cliff above the Atlantic, then Route 62 inland, promoted as the longest wine route in the world, running through the Little Karoo between mountain ranges with far less traffic than the coast. Betty’s Bay has a penguin colony on the rocks, then the Garden Route coastal towns, a safari lodge with an evening game drive after giraffe, elephant, buffalo and hippo, and Cape Agulhas, the southernmost point of Africa and the actual meeting point of the two oceans.

Bike hire is included, on a KTM 790 Adventure with a BMW R1250 or R1300 GS available as an upgrade, and a discount applies for anyone bringing their own. Eight days with no dirt and no long days makes this the most relaxed tour Ride Expeditions run, and the game drive at the lodge gives it something the self-guided version does not. No wildlife sighting can be promised. The whale season at Hermanus runs between June and November, and spring brings the wildflowers out along the west coast. For a first trip to South Africa on a bike, with a guide and no gravel, this is about as easy as the decision gets.