Garden Route (Self-Guided)

Seven nights in a loop from Cape Town, self-guided with a support vehicle, on sealed road throughout.

Chapman’s Peak Drive comes first, cut into the cliff above the Atlantic, then the Cape of Good Hope at the end of the peninsula, where the baboons are a genuine nuisance and the two oceans are said to meet somewhere offshore. Cape Town itself sits under Table Mountain, which is worth a day before the bikes are collected.

Route 62 follows inland, which is promoted as the longest wine route in the world and runs through the Little Karoo between mountain ranges, with far less traffic than the coast road. The Garden Route coastal towns come next, then Cape Agulhas, the southernmost point of Africa and the actual meeting point of the Atlantic and the Indian oceans, with Clarens Drive closing the loop along the cliffs above False Bay, which is among the best coast roads in the country.

Bike hire is included, on a KTM 790 Adventure with a BMW R1250 GS available as an upgrade, and a discount applies for anyone bringing their own. A support vehicle carries the luggage. Eight days on a road-only route makes this the most straightforward of the South African tours in the range, with no dirt and no safari, which suits a rider who would rather spend the time on good tarmac. 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 this is the easiest one to say yes to.