The Travelling Tortoise

Crazy about hiking? The Meiringspoort Pass – a cliff-lined path connecting the Little Karoo and the Great Karoo – is only a 20-minute drive away. If you’ve worked up a bit of a sweat you can also take a dip at the popular Meiringspoort Waterfall (25 minutes). No South African trip would be complete without visiting an ostrich farm, and luckily Oudtshoorn (50 minutes from the site) is considered the ostrich capital of the world. You can feed the birds and take a guided tour from a tractor-pulled trailer before stopping off for a meal or a drink at the café and restaurant. Cango Wildlife Ranch in Oudtshoorn has over 90 different species of animals and they're so well treated here that the ranch has been duly accredited; share some snap-worthy experiences here, such as meeting a cheetah and cage diving with crocodiles. The Cango Caves – still in the city but a little further out – turns any stalag-mights into stalag-definites, with its vast halls and illuminated dripstone caverns.