The Garden Route is usually said to begin at Mossel Bay, and this is where the story of European contact with this coast begins too. In 1488 the Portuguese navigator Bartolomeu Dias anchored here after rounding the Cape, making the first known European landing on this part of Africa, and the town's museum complex keeps a full-size replica of his caravel. A famous old milkwood tree in the town, known as the Post Office Tree, recalls the tradition that sailors left letters in a shoe hung from its branches.
Today the place is a lively seaside town of about sixty thousand, with a working harbour, long beaches, restaurants and a lighthouse on Cape St Blaize, from which a cliff path runs round the headland. Below the point, caves such as those at Pinnacle Point yielded some of the earliest evidence of modern human behaviour, including shellfish gathering and the use of pigments, perhaps a hundred and sixty thousand years ago. Oysters and fresh line fish are what to order, usually with a cold glass of local white wine.
The ride along the coast from here is easy and cheerful. The N2 runs east to George and beyond, but the older roads are better for a motorcycle: from George you can head inland over the Outeniqua mountains by the Montagu Pass, a historic gravel pass built in the 1840s, or take the tarred Outeniqua Pass to Oudtshoorn, in the dry Little Karoo, where ostrich farms and the Cango Caves wait. Weather is mild year-round, with the Indian Ocean warm and the sun reliable, though sea fog and the odd southerly gale can arrive. Spring and early autumn are the best seasons, while the Christmas holiday period brings heavy traffic and booked-out beds.
Practical matters are simple. Mossel Bay has plenty of fuel stations, and in South Africa an attendant will fill your tank for you, so it is customary to tip a few rand. Larger George, a little under forty kilometres east, offers more shops and repair services. Take a rain jacket, because showers can sweep in off the sea, and remember that the best evening light falls on the lighthouse and the rocks at the point, a good place to watch the sun go down.