South Africa has a number of aspects of its natural environment that are unmatched anywhere else on this planet. For example the Cradle of Humankind, a cave system just 30 minutes outside Johannesburg, has yielded more fossils of hominins (our ancestors) than all the rest of the pre-human fossil finds in the rest of the world combined to date.

There is the almost endless string of powder-sand beaches; the breathtaking diversity of hiking trails (most of them "slack packing where your heavy kit is transported between huts), a buffet of adventure sports and the fabulous Greater Kruger National Park with lodges from budget to utmost luxury accommodation options.

But perhaps the most impressive of all is the story of the Cape's terrestrial and marine biodiversity. On the landward side the indigenous vegetation we lovingly call fynbos (from the Dutch fijn bosch, for the small leaved plants) is arguably the world's most extraordinary natural plant community. In area smaller than the United Kingdom we have more flowering plants than the entire European continent – more than 9,000 in all.