No dogs allowed? Where to take your dog in and around the Garden Route.

School Holidays! Yes!

Kids and dogs packed. Food, music and moods, all pre-planned and off to the Garden Route. What better way to spend time with your beloved mutts, than in nature. Right?

Just one problem.

NO DOGS ARE ALLOWED ON THE BEACHES AND PARKS. ANYWHERE.

This is no joke. We ran into our first disappointment when trying to take the pooches to see ‘The Big Tree’ en-route to Wilderness. The SANP ranger came running after us. Waving.

‘Erm, excuse me. Unfortunately you are not allowed to bring dogs into the forest. This is for your own safety as well as your dogs. There are baboons here.’

So that kind of sucked. I blame Facebook for the high expectations of nature bundu-bashing with my dogs. You always see these beautiful videos of people taking their dogs with them on adventures. Traveling the world. In kayaks and over mountains. The whole damn lot. So we were more than disappointed, I can tell you.

Wilderness dog walkingSo, with all that said. I did find some handy information online from the SAN Park guys.

‘These zones are currently applicable in the Wilderness Beach but the colour-coded system will be rolled out to Sedgefield as well in phases’ according to main Marine Ranger for Wilderness, Jonathan Britton.

• Red Zone: No Go area
• Yellow Zones: Leashes only
• Green zones: Yes

‘We believe that these zones strike a balance between protecting coastal bird breeding and habitat areas, dog walking and other recreational users’ adds Britton.

This is great news for dog lovers, like us. I do hope the roll-out will happen really quickly with more information on which beaches and forests are available for walks.

Thank you for reading.

Carolyn

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Walking on Buffels Bay Beach