Wilderness sits on a long, wide beach between the Kaaimans River mouth and the Touw River lagoon, roughly halfway along the Garden Route. The name is apt — the setting is genuinely wild, backed by forested hills and fronted by the Indian Ocean.
The Wilderness Section of the Garden Route National Park protects a chain of lakes, rivers and estuaries behind the coast. You can canoe up the Touw River to a series of waterfalls on the Half-Collared Kingfisher Trail, go hiking through indigenous forest, or just swim in the warm ocean. Paragliding is also a draw. The Map of Africa viewpoint, a few kilometres inland, offers a striking aerial perspective of a river meander that looks uncannily like the continent.