Travel reviews by Mr G from Torquay

"This was our first time in the Western Cape, the scenery is stunning and it was a special holiday.

We saw what we hoped for during a September/October trip: Southern Right Whales African penguins, and fabulous spring flora generally and in the Postberg Reserve. The opportunity to walk unguided in all of the reserves we visited is a bit special (West Coast, Bontebok, De Hoop, Chapman's Peak, Cape Point)

We had not expected the weather to be so cold with persistent bitter winds; but it was mostly dry.

Some of the driving directions were out of date and some ignored more obvious, shorter routes.

We were correctly warned that driving standards in SA are poor. We saw the aftermath of 2 serious accidents; were overtaken while driving single file through road works and generally felt we were lucky to escape alive!

Overall, accommodation standards were high, but someone should have warned us (and Expert Africa?) that De Hoop is still undergoing redevelopment and our beautiful room was adjacent to a noisy building site.

We discovered the penguin colony at Betty's Bay by accident: much larger than at Boulders on the Cape peninsular, and worth highlighting for anyone visiting the Hermanus area, as is the Harold Porter botanical garden."

"The Scenery is fabulous and the visit was well worth while.

There were problems with some aspects which detracted from the overall experience - poor vehicle from Europcar, some booking problems, some places where wer appeared to get the worst of the accomodation that was on offer, rather than the best.."

Feedback response

We’ve learnt from chatting with these travellers, and are sure that we can use their very precise comments to improve trips for the future. We were delighted (and surprised) to hear that overall, despite their issues, they managed to have an enjoyable time!

We apologised about the issues with the rental car, and have taken them up with the car company’s management. These concern us; so it’s important that the lessons are addressed.

The ‘booking problems’ referred to a miscommunication with Vogelstrausskluft Lodge about a day-trip; see the link below to the lodge’s review page for comments.

With regard to them getting ‘the worst accommodation’ at some places… we can only say that we try our best for everyone. Where we know which rooms are best in a given lodge (within a given room type/price level), we always request these for our travellers. Often we are very successful – especially with more individual hotels, lodges and bushcamps. (Of course, our relationship with the lodge, and our buying power, helps us a lot!). This trip used some bigger, more anonymous hotels – so we were less successful than we often are. We’re sorry that this traveller felt that he was unlucky – but the rooms they had were simply normal rooms, typical of the establishments.