Archived destinations
The air holidays shown are ATOL Protected by the Civil Aviation Authority. Our ATOL number is ATOL 3253. ATOL Protection extends primarily to customers who book and pay in the United Kingdom. Click on the ATOL logo if you want to know more.
South Africa's Western Cape
The Hermanus area
 |
Hermanus is one of the best places in the world to watch whales and especially to see them inshore. It's not unusual for the southern right whales to be so close to land that they can be seen giving birth!
Harold Porter Botanical Garden
On route from Cape Town to Hermanus, this delightful garden is a small version of Kirstenbosch but with the chance of turning up a number of new bird species including black eagle and the stunning paradise flycatcher. Black saw-wing swallows are regularly seen along with bully canaries, Cape siskins, fork-tailed drongos and occasionally African black duck can be found on the fast flowing stream. Some scrub holds Victorin's warbler, one of the specialities of the area. Like so many of our venues on this holiday, Harold Porter boasts an excellent tearoom!
On our way to the gardens we will stop at a site to look for the enigmatic Cape rockjumper - one of the most sought after species in the area. It's also another good place to look for the ground woodpecker and to find Cape rock thrush.
Overberg farmlands and adjacent coastal areas
These are the haunt of South Africa's national bird, the blue crane, as well as being good raptor country, holding such species as jackal buzzard, martial eagle and secretary bird, although the last is becoming increasingly difficult to find. The area holds a number of lark species, Stanley's bustard and both Karoo and southern black korhaan, closely related bustards.
Although much of this area is given over to vast wheatlands, characteristic species include black crow, red-capped lark, capped wheatear, fiscal shrike, pied starling and pin-tailed whydah. The area holds many special flowers, most obvious being the large aloes that occur in parts.
We will spend two days exploring various road systems in the area, in search of the special birds and plants of the area. On one of these days we will venture south to Cape Agulhas, the southern most tip of Africa. Here we might well find a good selection of seabirds including the chance of seeing the tiny Damara tern, one of Africa's rarest seabirds.
 |
Grootvadersbosch nature reserve
Finally we will visit this excellent area of indigenous forest, dominated by ironwood, with much stinkwood and yellowwood, among others. Here we will seek out true forest species such as forest canary, blue-mantled flycatcher, yellow-throated woodland warbler and perhaps even brown-backed honeyguide!
Jackass penguin
