This trip is designed for people to visit the very popular Bedford Garden Festival, which is only held for one weekend per year. The festival’s aim is for visitors to experience world-renowned country gardens, as well as pretty town and township gardens, enjoy scrumptious food and wines, and visit craft stalls. The festival is during springtime, so the scenery all along the route will be very colourful.
Day 1:
Guest will be picked up from their homes, and transferred to OR Tambo airport. The time for the pick-up, transfer, and flight will be confirmed closer to the date. Depart on domestic departing around 11h00, from Johannesburg to Port Elizabeth. On arrival, your host will be waiting for you. We depart from the airport on a 2-hour drive to Addo Elephant Park. A convenience and lunch stop will be made en route.
We will check into the well-appointed chalets at Addo National Park for the first 2 nights of the tour. Around 16h00 we will do a first-afternoon game drive in this wonderful park. Dinners and breakfasts at Addo will be prepared by your host.
Day 2:
Today we will do game drives into the park to view the variety of animals, especially the elephants. We will set aside some time as well for a bit of relaxation, where guests can view the water hole from their chalets. Enjoy the beauty of this park.
Day 3:
After a last drive through the park, it will be time to move on again. We travel from Addo towards the town of Cradock. This is where we will check into our Guesthouse which will be our base for the 4 days. We are staying here as quality accommodation in Bedford itself is very limited. After enjoying lunch in town, we also visit the town’s museum (if open)
Day 4 and 5:
Over the next two days, we will travel toward Bedford- 50 km away. The Bedford Garden festival has more than 40 gardens that are open to the public. Some of these gardens are on farms in the outlying areas of Bedford. So we will follow various routes to get to many of the prize-winning gardens. We also visit the town Country Fair, where you can meander through craft stalls and sock up on local pantry fillers. We will learn more about heritage roses at the SA Rosarium and see an amazing butterfly collection. Over the two days, we will do our best to visit the festival.
Day 6:
The journey home starts today, and we follow the N10 route via Middelburg, Noupoort, Colesberg, and Springfontein. Being typical Karoo areas the landscape continuously changes from high mountain ranges and passes to open plains areas. After enjoying lunch in Colesberg we also visit the Gariep Dam before the last part of the drive toward Bloemfontein. Arrive in the mid-afternoon for the last evening at the Diaz Guesthouse. Relax in the gardens before dinner.
Day 7:
Our last day will be all along the N1 route to Johannesburg, which is a good double carriageway. We travel via Venterburg and Kroonstad towards Johannesburg. Guests will be dropped off at their homes in the mid-afternoon.
