Travelling up to the Harmonic Resonance party to help promote my mums event The Little Green Gathering , we discovered many hidden treasures amongst the otherwise isolatingly spacious and overgrown landscapes of the Garden Route.

Wild Sprit lodge& backpackers (photograph by Julan Briant)

Friday Night:

After a long-winded and rather dramatic 6-hour ride in the dark and rain, we arrive at our friend's off-the-grid home, greeted mercifully by a cup of Organic hot cocoa. This is the kind of house where you take a flashlight to the loo and have to stand in a certain place in the lounge to receive any morsel of cellular phone reception. I slept like a baby.

Saturday:

Platbos is the incredible ancient, indigenous forest discovered by Francois and Melissa Krige, just off the coast of Gansbaai, in the Overberg. Africa's southernmost forest - a beautiful space.

If you haven't visited the forest yet, make a date. And now you can stay there too...(read on)

For more about the trails – here's a whole blurb about each, who you need to contact for more information, and to book.

“The Five Bay Trail, Darling Stagger, Wheels of Time, Eve's Trail and the Berg River Canooze are hospitable Cape West Coast trails for everyone, from hardcore mountain lovers, twitchers and botanists to family groups and modern-day strandlopers.”

The Cape West Coast Biosphere Reserve, for those of you who, like me, didn't know of its existence, lies between Diep River in Milnerton in the south, the Berg River, Velddrif in the north, the N7 at the towns of Moreesberg and Malmesbury in the east and the Atlantic Ocean in the west.

It is one of only six biospheres recognised as such by UNESCO in South Africa.

Jill's cob guest houseWe find the house via a combination of directions from McGregor’s locals and the ability to follow our noses once we have the rather obvious house in sight – there are not many homes in McGregor that look quite like it. Outside is a sign – cobbits cottage. It’s an apt description of what stands before us, built completely out of earth and serving as MAT’s headquarters.

Our friend Hazel (we blogged about her here ) lives on a farm. It isn't just any farm either, it's a beautiful organic farm offering accommodation perched on the hill overlooking the Gou Kou River in Stilbaai.

Hazel's farm is a hugely popular lunch and breakfast venue, not least because she grows most of the vegetables and salads that she uses in her meals on her farm according to the principles of permaculture.

She is, as you will soon find out, intensely enthusiastic about permaculture and it is no surprise that she is now offering a 12 day Permaculture Design Course - starting on 18 October 2010.

Second Edition Cape Town Green MapWe've been working on a project with the City of Cape Town's Environmental Resource Management Dept and A & C Maps for the last eighteen months and today we're launching the second print edition of the Cape Town Green Map, ahead of World Environment Day tomorrow. The online map was launched a year ago, and Open Green Map, the global green map system we are affiliated with, is also turning one tomorrow.

There is something of the sacred in Hogsback. Perhaps it is the ethereal proximity of dense, indigenous forests that hint at faery folk, or its remoteness that make it so. But few people leave here without some element of reparation, even if it is simply their faith in the beauty of nature that is restored.

The approach to the eco shrine, which the artist Diana Graham calls the 'Voice of the Earth Eco shrine', does much to reinforce this impression. It is a tunnel formed by lean, leafy Hazelnut trees that create a vortex through which one moves from one time into another. Or so it seems.

2010 is virtually upon us, but before we allow the new year to sweep us back into the swing of things, it's a good moment to reflect on the past year and what news stories were most popular with our readers.

1. is Woolworths just another bad egg?
So there you are; surrounded by posters of poultry basking in their freedom, your conscience and shopping experience clean because you are promised that the eggs you are buying came from free-range chickens. If chickens could smile, I’m sure we would be confronted by an enormous picture of a splendid beaky grin.

2. you can recycle tetra pak!
I have to confess to sending various irate messages to Tetra Pak over the last year about their apparent lack of recycling facilities in Cape Town, or the country for that matter. The perception out there, despite their very obvious drive to recycle overseas, is that one can't recycle tetra pak, and there are a fair amount of them if you consider things like fruit juice, some olive oil, long-life milk and custard all come in these containers – they heap up over time!

www.capetowngreenmap.co.za now has a print map. You can either get hold of it free of charge from Cape Town Tourism Visitor Information Centres, or you can be one of the first to download a pdf version (read further).

This morning we were one of a small party of people (most of them the steering committee) who met on a hill at Tygerberg Hills Nature Reserve to launch the print map...

Richard Hammond and Jeremy Smith have just co-authored a tome for all Rough Guide enthusiasts. It's a book brimming over with unusual, ethical green things to do, all over the world, and worth getting hold of, if you're even remotely interested in climate-friendly travel.

The authors describe a Clean Break as – about minimising your environmental impact – on your journey and at your destination – by choosing carefully how you travel and the nature of the place you choose to stay at. It's also about having a positive impact in other ways – by contributing where you can to the conservation of wildlife and local heritage, and suporting local economies.

And before you translate that to mean that you have to give up certain luxuries or adventure extremes to which you are accustomed, the authors say absolutely not...