South Africa's 1990s tourist boom rudely shook
KNYSNA (pronounced "Nize-na") from its gentle backwoods drowse, which for decades made this the hippy and craftwork capital and quiet retirement village of the country. The town, 102km east of Mossel Bay, now stands at the hub of the Garden Route; its lack of ocean beaches is compensated by its hilly setting around the lagoon, and some hot marketing. The lagoon's narrow mouth is guarded by a pair of steep rocky promontories called
The Heads , the western side being a private nature reserve and the eastern one an exclusive residential area along dramatic cliffs above the Indian Ocean.
Knysna's distinctive atmosphere derives from its small historic core of Georgian and Victorian buildings, which gives it a character absent from most of the Garden Route holiday towns. Coffee shops, craft galleries, street traders and a modest nightlife add to the attractions, and you may find yourself tempted to stay longer than just one night. That the town has outgrown itself is evident from the cars and tour buses which, especially in December and January, clog Main Street, the constricted artery that merges with the N2 as it enters the town
The Town and around
Knysna wraps around the lagoon, with its oldest part - the town centre - on the northern side. Along the eastern shore the exclusive suburbs include
Leisure Isle , connected to the shore by a narrow causeway, and
The Heads , a network of roads winding up to the heights overlooking the craggy coast and a wild Indian Ocean.
Main Street is the hub of the city centre, and its principal attraction is the collection of craft and woodwork shops lining the road. The Knysna Museum (Mon-Fri 9.30am-4.30pm, Sat 9.30am-noon; entry by donation, includes Angling Museum) on the corner of Queen and Main streets contains a complex of minor exhibits that can comfortably occupy an undemanding half-hour. Attractions here include South Africa's first Angling Museum , an extensive collection of antique nets and rods, tracing the changing technology of the activity. Look out for the preserved coelacanth, one of several specimens in the country of a fish long thought to have been extinct, until one turned up in a fishing net in 1939.
About 500m south of Knysna Tourism, at the end of Grey Street lies the Knysna Quays , the town's waterfront complex and yacht basin. Built at the end of the 1990s, this elegant two-storey steel structure with timber boardwalks resembles a tiny version of Cape Town's V&A Waterfront - but probably owes its inspiration as much to New England or Seattle, and blows away Knysna's hippy cobwebs with a breath of upmarket supercool. Here you'll find the luxury Protea Hotel , some clothes and knickknack shops and a couple of good eating places, including a stunning deli-style bistro with outdoor decks, from which you can watch yachts drift past.
A short way from the centre in the industrial area, Mitchell's Brewery , Arend Rd, off George Rex Drive via Vigilance and Sandpiper roads, offers thirty-minute tours (Mon-Fri 10.30am), where for next to nothing you get to sample their beers, including Foresters Draught, a Pilsner-type lager, and Bosun's Bitter, an ale modelled on Yorkshire bitter. The brewery is too far to reach on foot, so take a taxi if you don't have your own transport, or stay in town and sample the beers at one of the pubs.
The main reasons to head for Leisure Isle are the excellent swimming in the lagoon and the views out to sea through the gap between The Heads. The best bathing spots are along the southern shore of the island, particularly the western section along Bayswater Drive; but check a tide table, as the swimming is only good around high tide (and then only in summer).
Continuing south along George Rex Drive brings you to the web of roads winding through the small suburban areas of The Heads and Coney Glen to the top of the eastern Head . Around Paquitas restaurant are fantastic views out to sea; for an even better viewpoint, head along the short walkway starting outside the restaurant, taking you along the cliff edge.
The beaches
Don't come to Knysna for a beach holiday: apart from the lagoon's edge, the closest sands are 20km away, around the western edge of the lagoon at Brenton-on-Sea . On the shores of the beautifully sandy Buffels Bay, this is a tiny settlement with an unexceptional hotel situated on a quite exceptional beach. A few kilometres inland is the quaint and very upmarket settlement of Belvidere , through which visitors are prohibited from driving (but you can walk around). Although Buffels Bay , the next beach to the west, is along the same continuous stretch of sand as Brenton-on-Sea, there's no direct route there; you have to return to the N2 and proceed from there. In the opposite direction from Knysna things are little better, with the closest patch of sand lying to the east at Noetzie , a town known more for its eccentric holiday homes built to look like castles than for its seaside.
