A three-day festival celebrating the Garden Route’s wild places is coming to Plettenberg Bay this September, with guided walks, talks, storytelling and nature experiences planned across three important conservation corridors.
Photo: Unsplash
The Festival of Wild Kindness takes place from 24 to 26 September 2026, marking the 20th anniversary of the Eden to Addo Corridor Initiative, which has spent two decades working to reconnect fragmented landscapes between the Garden Route and Addo Elephant National Park.
The festival will move through the Keurbooms, Robberg Coastal and Bitou corridors, giving visitors the chance to experience these landscapes on foot while learning more about the plants, wildlife, history and people connected to them.
One of the highlights will be a guided hike along the Inqua Trail in the Robberg Coastal Corridor on 25 September.
Three days of walks, talks and wild places
The Festival of Wild Kindness is centred around experiencing the Garden Route’s natural landscapes rather than simply passing through them.
The programme begins on 24 September with A Morning with Katot, a morning walk in the Keurbooms Corridor. On 25 September, the focus shifts to the Robberg Coastal Corridor for a guided day hike along the Inqua Trail.
The final day, 26 September, heads into the Bitou Corridor for a forest walk and fireside conversation, with poetry, storytelling and plant and bird interpretation forming part of the wider programme.
The festival brings together a range of voices connected to conservation, nature and the Garden Route, including author and conservationist Ian McCallum, Maphiko Ncedani and musician and storyteller Galeo Saintz.
Rather than being confined to one venue, the festival uses the landscape itself as its setting, giving visitors a chance to experience three different corridors and the work being done to protect them.
The Inqua Trail takes hikers along the Robberg coast
For those keen to experience one of the festival’s highlights on foot, the Inqua Trail offers a guided route through the Robberg Coastal Corridor.
Launched in 2020, the trail is a guided, fully catered slackpacking route across privately owned land linking Robberg Nature Reserve with the Garden Route National Park.
The Robberg day hike includes caves, rock pools and archaeological and geological sites, as well as the Amphitheatre, a striking feature of the coastline. The route also passes through critically endangered coastal fynbos.
The surrounding landscape forms part of an active leopard and aardvark corridor, so there is plenty to look out for beyond the coastline itself.
The trail’s archaeological sites are also significant for the study of early human history in the region, adding an historical dimension to a hike that could otherwise easily be reduced to its spectacular scenery.
The Inqua Trail has since expanded beyond its original day hike, with visitors now able to choose one- or two-night slackpacking routes for a longer experience in the corridor.
Your hike helps fund conservation
One of the most interesting aspects of the Inqua Trail is that the experience is directly tied to the conservation of the landscape it passes through.
Money from every booking helps fund work within the Robberg Coastal Corridor, including invasive species clearing, biodiversity monitoring and fynbos restoration.
The trail also supports employment for local guides and rangers, with service providers drawn from neighbouring communities.
The idea is that tourism can help make conservation work financially sustainable while giving visitors a reason to become more connected to the landscape.
The Robberg Coastal Corridor Protected Environment currently spans 355 hectares across 19 different landholdings, linking Robberg Nature Reserve to the Garden Route National Park. The longer-term vision is for the full corridor to encompass around 1 000 hectares.
Twenty years of reconnecting the Garden Route
The festival comes at an important milestone for the Eden to Addo Corridor Initiative, which celebrates its 20th anniversary in 2026.
The initiative works to reconnect fragmented landscapes through a network of conservation corridors linking protected areas along the Garden Route and towards Addo Elephant National Park.
The idea behind these corridors is to create connections between areas of protected habitat rather than leaving conservation areas as isolated pockets.
The Festival of Wild Kindness puts that work into a format visitors can experience for themselves. Each day takes participants into a different corridor, with the walks providing an opportunity to learn about the landscapes and the people involved in protecting them.
What to expect at the Festival of Wild Kindness
The three-day programme offers something for visitors who enjoy hiking, nature and learning more about South Africa’s conservation work.
24 September: A morning walk in the Keurbooms Corridor, A Morning with Katot.
25 September: The Inqua Trail Robberg day hike, with local guides leading visitors through the coastal corridor.
26 September: A forest walk and fireside conversation in the Bitou Corridor.
Poetry, storytelling and plant and bird interpretation will also form part of the programme.
The festival is aimed at adults and older children, with the Quicket listing stating that the event is not suitable for children under 13.
Book your spot
The Festival of Wild Kindness is taking place from 24 to 26 September 2026, with visitors able to book individual experiences or attend across the three days.
Tickets are available through Quicket, with prices starting at R250. The Inqua Trail experience on 25 September is listed at R650, including a packed lunch.
Book tickets for the Festival of Wild Kindness on Quicket
ALSO SEE: Garden Route road trip: 15 things to budget for before you go
Garden Route road trip: 15 things to budget for before you go
