Bundu Bashers (Tsitsikamma, South Africa) 2026

Bundu Bashers runs in the Tsitsikamma from midday on 30 December 2026 to the evening of 2 January 2027, four days on the Garden Route in the Eastern Cape. Tsitsikamma means place of much water in Khoisan, and the area is temperate rainforest running down to the Indian Ocean, which is unlike anywhere else in South Africa.

The name is South African slang: bundu bashing means driving off road into the bush, and the festival carries that attitude. Running across the turn of the year puts it in the busiest week of the South African calendar, when the Garden Route fills with people from Cape Town, Johannesburg and Durban.

Tickets are sold through Howler. Tsitsikamma sits on the N2 around six hours east of Cape Town and two from Port Elizabeth, which has the nearest airport, in country with the Storms River mouth, the Bloukrans bungee and the forest canopy walks all within reach. Late December here is warm and humid with afternoon rain more likely than elsewhere in the Cape. For a Garden Route New Year music festival, the landscape is the reason to go.