A visit to South Africa usually means ticking off the Big Five from the comfort of a game drive jeep, bumping along through thickly forested bush and over rust-brown savannah in a cloud of dust, long lens cameras and smartphones ready.
On safari, it’s easy to become mesmerised and excited watching the wildlife in their natural surroundings that visitors often can’t see the wood for the trees, if they notice any botanical wealth at all.
I have arrived at a place where the Dark Continent’s Big Five don’t roam. My adventure is in Grootbo, meaning ‘big forest’ in Afrikaans, a nature reserve embedded in one of the world’s most unique and beautiful ecosystems, overlooking Walker Bay in South Africa’s Western Cape. The area has one of the richest concentrations of botanical species in the world.
The natural scrubland heath called Fynbos, once wild abandoned farmland, is also an award-winning sustainable travel business that includes five-star rated villa…
