More than six months after devastating fires claimed the lives of eight people and destroyed large tracts of indigenous forest near Knysna in the Southern Cape, the scenic region is once again open for tourism.
Most of the Garden Route miraculously remains undamaged and tourists have begun pouring in for the festive season.
Immediately after the devastating wildfires, it was hard to imagine that Knysna and the surrounding areas would return to their former glory, but now they have.
All that remained after June the seventh were the charred remains of homes, trees and scorched earth.
The fire destroyed more than a thousand homes. However, since then, residents and business have been rebuilding.
Forests, plants and wildlife have been healing and growing.
With a worldwide name for adventure tourism, Knysna has bounced back from the tragedy and it’s business as usual.
One of the victims of the inferno, Jacques Brink owns a bicycle shop in the town. He says they’ve managed to get back on their feet.
“We lost our family home in Knysna which we built 11 years ago. We were in Templeman which is one of the main residential areas that was hit by the fires. The rebuilding has been amazing. The guys that are doing the forest rehabilitation around us have been amazing and all the help has been pouring in from around South Africa and globally.”
In the hospitality sector, several establishments are fully-booked.
Wande Tours & Stays’ s Mawande Kondlo says his township tours business is thriving.
“We used to work in the hotels for 7 years and while working there people started asking how are things in the township are they changing? I saw that as a business opportunity, then I started with the township tours, then people started asking where can we sleep overnight in the township? Remember in South Africa we embrace the rainbow nation so we serve semi-traditional food.”
The fires also affected the neighbouring town of Plettenberg Bay.
Here too, rebuilding started almost immediately. Plett is also a top tourist destination which receives record numbers of visitors every year.
Acting Municipal Manager for Bitou, David Friedman, says the municipality has done what they can to ensure that people could rebuild their homes and businesses:
“In the meantime we have reduced the rates on the building plans on these properties. We have issues a rates rebate for a period of a year. So we have applied our mind and we are helping the people in that sense, in the rebuild.”
The word from the Garden Route is that it’s open for business and it’s encouraging visitors to come to the region.
A number of exciting events have been lined up for the festive season.
