Barbara & John in Kwa Zulu Natal

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Barbara & John in Kwa Zulu Natal (KZN)


We have spent two weeks in KZN and it has been a varied period covering wonderful scenery, cultural interest and good beaches.

My birthday saw us on the road to Ramsgate on a 9 hour journey. It was good to be leaving what I thought was quite a strange farm and farmer’s wife. The view over the dam and hills set in a lovely garden was very picturesque but I will always remember the haunting feeling in the creaky floored bedroom. Despite the fact that we were out of the highland area the scenery at times was stunning. Our first day in Ramsgate was for chill, spending some time on a private beach. Our second day was at the Oribi Gorge. We thought this might only take a couple of hours but it took all day. There are several sections to the gorge area which covers a huge area. Our first stop was at the Oribi Gorge hotel. Here there are several locations surrounding part of the long gorge which give access to some great views looking across and down into the gorge base. The most sensational areas are around the bungee/gorge swing jump area. This is where the 170 metre waterfall is. We saw 3 people jumping into the gorge, stopping less than a hundred feet from the bottom; it made my stomach turn, but it was certainly spectacular. The Baboon Castle area also gave good views of the jumping and the gorge below as well as the huge vertical rock edifice of the ‘castle’. Our last stop here was a walk along a suspension bridge over the gorge with a different view of the Lehr waterfall and the gorge; it was also pretty stomach churning but gave magnificent views. From the hotel area we headed for the Oribi Lake Eland Game Reserve. We did manage to see five Elands (the largest of the antelope) and a few other animals, including Zebra, Blesbok and Mountain Reed Buck. Within the Reserve is another suspension bridge. This is even more dramatic than the previous one with superb views along the gorge and over the river. Barbara used the drop toilet here said to have the longest drop in Africa, also with a view.
After Ramsgate we spent 5 nights in the Drakensberg Mountain area, close to Winterton, which is some 4000 feet above sea level. These mountains form the Lesotho Kingdom, where the highest peak is about 12000 feet. On our first day we headed for the Reserve at Cathedral Peak. The scenery surrounding the Reserve is very pretty with lots of hills, valleys and streams and some good views of the peaks, albeit all but one were covered in clouds. Our first stop was at the Didima San Art Centre, a small museum complex contained in a large thatched roof, timber and concrete structure. It was a good blend of old and new building techniques. The exhibits were generally of interest and there were good examples of original rock paintings on view. It seems that the San people were in this area for 20000 years, albeit the paintings only date from 4000 years ago. Their demise seems to have occurred when they came in to contact with Europeans in the mid nineteenth century. We finished our morning visit here by having lunch at the nearby hotel, below the various peaks, the highest being about 10000 feet. From here we headed back to Champagne Valley. There were a great variety of small houses on view, all were small but there were lots of small traditional round thatched units together with brick built units in small clusters, rather than the dense Townships we have seen in all other areas we have so far visited. The following day we headed for the Natal National Park. We did an hour’s walk to the cascade and back, before heading for the picnic site where we had our lunch with a good view of part of the massive Amphitheatre formation. The views of the Amphitheatre improved as we approached it and were excellent just before we got to the car park when the views disappeared. We decided not to do any of the multi hours walks available but opted to return via the road to the west of the Driel Dam in the Mnweni valley. It was an interesting ride with some very pleasant rolling scenery as well as the lake. There were so many school children on the road exiting from numerous schools, be it junior or senior level: all the school’s having their own distinctive uniform. The children walk the breadth of the road in groups and made way for us as we slowly drove past, many waving; they seemed so well behaved. None of the children were being collected by parents. The following day we headed for Giant’s Castle via the road to Injasuthi Resort. The scenery as we were approaching the gravel part of the road started to improve dramatically. Unfortunately the road was very slow but the scenery more than made up for it. It took an hour from the start of the gravel road to reach the resort but the closer we got the more spectacular the scenery, despite the clouds, which eventually chased us away with a thunderstorm over the mountains. On our final day here we headed for Clarens, in the Free State. The huge Sterkfontein Dam Lake welcomed us to Free State coupled with fine mountain scenery, but soon after entering the Golden Gate Highlands National Park the views became sensational. The Monantsa Pass is at about 6500 feet and yet there were still lots of peaks and a myriad of rock formations which seemed out of the imagination of a modern artist. There were so many combination of colours showing in the largely sandstone rock, including yellows, reds, pinks, orange, browns and mauves. The valley scenes too were impressive. We were too busy watching the scenery as we drove to notice any of the animals, which we subsequently saw on our return. The central part of Clarens village is very pretty, set around a large rectangular green. There are a huge number of restaurants, bars and galleries as well as craft shops. It is clearly an affluent area and it has a very relaxed atmosphere which makes it a charming place to just meander. In contrast its large ugly Township makes a mockery of its wealth. It was dark by the time we got back and as we drove from Winterton we were driving into a huge thunderstorm. The lightening over the mountains was a tremendous sight, being both sheet and forked, across a very wide area. Soon after getting back to our apartment the storm closed in on us. It did not last long but the thunder was deafening. An exciting way to end what was a fabulous last day in Drakensberg.

On our way to Zululand we stopped on route at Howick to see the 85 metre waterfall on the edge of town, which was very impressive, with a good flow of water. From here we also spent some time in the 1000 hills area forming part of the eastern suburbs of Durban. The area is very pleasant with large rolling hills crossing each other; it seemed like a sea of camels. We stayed in Eshowe while in Zululand. We had intended a visit Shakaland or Nandi experience in order to get some Zulu culture and custom, but when I phoned I was told there was a strike! Fortunately there are other things of interest in the area, including a forest boardwalk. This took about an hour and was very pleasant walking amidst a thick eerie forest. We did not see any of prolific bird life here because we were there at the wrong time of the day, it is better at 6am! The other main interest in Eshowe is the fort, post dating the end of the Zulu wars. We had an interesting guided tour of the several parts of the fort which were now museums. It was interesting talking to this bright young man who was still undergoing his education. He was a Zulu who considered himself South African first and Zulu second which I found interesting. He also showed us the Norwegian church next to the fort and explained the ease with which Zulus took to Christianity, since it fell in line with their own belief in a single god. Many now practice a combination of Christian and tribal beliefs.

The following day we followed route 66, Zululand style. We briefly stopped at Probane Lake before stopping for a drink at the Mthonjaneni Lodge adjacent to the Zulu museum. It was a very pleasant spot where we not only saw a couple of zebras but also our first wild giraffe: unfortunately the giraffe was a trophy hanging on the wall of the bar. Route 66 has not got any dramatic scenery but it is nonetheless appealing with high rolling hills with lots of green variations. Our stop at the Ondini heritage site just to the east of Ulundi was excellent. There is a part reconstruction of King Cetshwayo’s residence on the exact site of the Royal capital. The reconstruction was achieved following archaeological excavation and the discovery of the original dung floors of the huts which had been preserved following the village being put to the torch by the British army after the final battle of the Anglo-Zulu wars. It was fascinating seeing the round thatched huts of different sizes dependent on the rank or status of his family. It is a large encampment surrounded by a six foot high barricade of thin tree branches arranged in an inverted V shape to give depth and form a reasonably strong barrier. The camp was set on the top of a high hill and so gave good warning of any advancing enemy; not that it helped against the smaller British army who had better weapons and superior tactical skills. The site is only a couple of hundred yards away from a well set out and informative museum. The museum traced the history of the peoples through the Stone Age, showing that the Zulu people’s descendants came from northern areas of Africa, essentially the Bantu tribes. The surprising thing is that until the early nineteenth century there was no such thing as a Zulu nation. Within the now Zululand there was lots of independent tribes. It was only the rise of the ambitious, not to say ruthless leader, called Shaka, did the Zulu nation take form, after he defeated many of these tribes/clans in battle. Shaka, however, was assassinated by his half brothers, in less than a generation of the Zulu nation being created and the leadership that followed was less war like and less astute. It is surprising that the Zulu culture has prevailed and there is still a Zulu king, albeit without any authority. It does seem though that the Zulu people have gone forth and multiplied. They now form a quarter of the population of South Africa.

On leaving Eshowe we decided to travel via R34 and the Nkwalini Valley. It was a pleasant enough drive with lots of sugar cane and citrus fruit farms. We had intended to see a few more cultural sights along the dirt track on route 230 but decided instead to go to Mtunzini for a change of setting. We had a drink in the very pretty village overlooking the golf course and the sea in the distance before driving down to the Umlalazi Nature Reserve which is set around the coast. We went to the beach initially and found this to be busy with locals. It is a huge beach, being very long and deep with a long walk to the sea. There were swimmers, fishermen and boats dotted along the water with 4x4 vehicles towing their trailers down to the water’s edge. We could not find a vacant spot close to the river and so drove on, along a dirt road, through more mangroves. We finally got to the end of the drive which finished on the river but with no shade for a picnic. We did though have an encounter with five zebras that were resting in the mangroves right by the dirt road. They seemed unconcerned by our presence even when I got out of the car to get a closer look.

On arriving at our accommodation in St Lucia the night watchman, when explaining how to gain access with the car at the rear of the property, said they had installed gates because of a “Gypo” gaining access and being found in the swimming pool. I was puzzled by this until Barbara clarified matters for me: it had been a Hippo that had got in! Our first day in the Wetlands saw us off to Cape Vidal via what is considered to be a Game Reserve. We did see a number of animals but there seems to be so few given the huge area of the Reserve. We did though see about 5 Hippos early on while we were on the Pan Loop, but they were immersed in water apart, from the top part of their face and some of their back. In this area we also saw several animals which we assume are some sort of antelope, except their necks were much longer and slender, similar to a Llama. Cape Vidal itself is unspectacular apart from a huge sandy beach. The following day we did the long drive to Sodwana Bay. Just before arriving at Sodwana we encountered swarms of suicidal moths. Many of them met their end on the windscreen: messy buggers. There is a tremendously large sandy beach here but the main entrance is given over to boat launching and recovery. We got there just before 1pm and there were numerous empty trailers littering the beach. There were also a few huge wheeled tractors helping to pull boats out that had been grounded at speed on to the beach as they returned. There is a lot of sea fishing done from here as well as scuba diving and snorkelling. It seems though that this is solely a morning activity since there were numerous boats returning after we arrived but none that left. By 3pm all landings had been completed and the beach area became a ghost town, with just a few bathers and shore based fishermen, not to mention the couple of monkeys who now scavenged the bins that were on the beach. Our last day in St Lucia was for chill. We did a forest walk and saw lots of large and colourful butterflies, a small deer and a huge reptile which at first looked like a baby crocodile. Apart from this, the many vines and the warnings about crocodiles and Hippos, we could have been walking in Langdon Hills. The rest of the day was spent moving to different very sandy beaches. This chill, however, did not fully prepare us for our 10 ½ hour journey to Graskop and The Blyde River crossing penultimate stop of our trip.

Sorry, but this travel blog is not currently allowing me to upload photos. Perhaps next time. John & Barb

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