Western Cape

From the Cedarberg Mountains to the Agulhas coast to the expansive winelands and the glorious Garden Route, the Western Cape is a province of amazing diversity.

Between Lambert's Bay and Plettenberg Bay, sweeping stretches of sand are dominated by rocky promontories, fishing villages and holiday resorts. Apart from the scenic beauty and the endless rolling of the waves, the coast provides ideal conditions for anglers. Solitude is easy to find and fish are abundant in great variety.

Golden wheat fields and fragrant orchards abound, and gracious, gabled Cape Dutch Mansions set among manicured vineyards, enhance a peerless setting found further afield in the Boland.

Towering mountains provide a fitting backdrop for the spectacular landscape. The lakes and forests of the Garden Route are also bordered by impressive mountain ranges, and the interior is reached via a number of stunning passes. North of the mountains, the Klein Karoo is characterised by wide open spaces, undulating hills and enormous ostrich farms.

Every season the scenery changes from the flowers of spring, the ripening orchards of summer, the red and golden shades of autumn and the snow-capped mountain peaks of winter.

The eastern plateau region (including Johannesburg) has a dry, sunny climate in winter with maximum temperatures around 20ºC and crisp nights with temperatures dropping to around 5ºC. Between October and April there are late-afternoon showers often accompanied by spectacular thunder and lightning, but it rarely gets unpleasantly hot. Heavy hailstorms cause quite a lot of damage each year. It can, however, get very hot in the Karoo (the semi-desert heart of all three Cape provinces) and the far north (the Kalahari). The Western Cape has dry sunny summers with maximum temperatures around 26ºC. It is often windy, however, and the southeasterly 'Cape Doctor' can reach gale force. Winters can get cold, with average minimum temperatures of around 5ºC, and maximum temperatures of around 17'C, with occasional snow on the higher peaks.

The coast north from the Cape becomes progressively drier and hotter. Along the south coast the weather is temperate, but the east coast becomes increasingly tropical the further north you go. The Transkei region and KwaZulu/Natal can be hot and unpleasantly humid in summer, although the highlands are still pleasant; this is also a summer rainfall area. The Mpumalanga and Northern Province lowveld get very hot in summer, when there are spectacular storms. In winter the days are sunny and warm.