South Africa · Southern Africa
KwaZulu-Natal and Zululand.
KwaZulu-Natal combines a warm coastline, the Drakensberg mountains and Big Five reserves that are malaria-free or low-risk.
Photo Arthur Hickinbotham / Unsplash
Hluhluwe-iMfolozi is the province's principal reserve and one of the oldest in Africa, best known for its part in bringing the white rhino back from near-extinction. iSimangaliso Wetland Park, a World Heritage Site, runs up the coast from St Lucia and holds a quite different set of habitats — estuary, wetland and dune forest.
Inland, the Drakensberg escarpment is walking and riding country rather than game country, and the battlefields around Isandlwana and Rorke's Drift draw a specific and well-informed kind of visitor.
How do you get to KwaZulu-Natal's game reserves?
Fly into King Shaka International, north of Durban, which has flights from Johannesburg, Cape Town and some international routes. Hluhluwe-iMfolozi and St Lucia are around three hours' drive north, and the private reserves in the same area have airstrips for light aircraft. The Drakensberg is a drive of three to four hours inland.
How old is Hluhluwe-iMfolozi Park?
Its two founding reserves were proclaimed in 1895, which makes it one of the oldest protected areas in Africa. It covers about 960 square kilometres and holds the Big Five. It is best known for Operation Rhino in the 1960s, which moved white rhino from here to reserves across Africa and helped bring the species back from near-extinction.
What is iSimangaliso Wetland Park?
A protected coastline running north from St Lucia towards the Mozambique border, and one of South Africa's first World Heritage Sites, listed in 1999. It takes in the St Lucia estuary with its hippos and crocodiles, coastal lakes, wetlands, dune forest and coral reefs, and leatherback and loggerhead turtles nest on its northern beaches.
Is KwaZulu-Natal or the Greater Kruger better for a safari?
The Greater Kruger is larger and holds more game across a wider area. KwaZulu-Natal's reserves are smaller, but the province adds a beach, the Drakensberg and the 1879 Anglo-Zulu War battlefields of Isandlwana and Rorke's Drift within one trip. Its northern reserves are a low-risk malaria area, so travellers should take advice from a travel clinic.
What is the Drakensberg known for?
Walking, riding and San rock art. The uKhahlamba-Drakensberg escarpment is a World Heritage Site for both its landscape and its thousands of rock paintings, some made thousands of years ago, and it holds some of the highest peaks in southern Africa.
What is there to see in KwaZulu-Natal and Zululand?
What does KwaZulu-Natal and Zululand pair well with?
- Greater Kruger and the LowveldThe Greater Kruger is South Africa's principal safari region: the national park itself plus a belt of private reserves sharing unfenced boundaries with it.
- The southern coast and Maputo, MozambiqueThe mainland coast south of Vilankulo is road-accessible from South Africa and quite different in character from the islands.
- Cape Town and the Cape PeninsulaCape Town is the city most itineraries are anchored to, and the Peninsula gives it a coastline, a mountain and a wine region within an hour of the centre.
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Elsewhere in South Africa
- The Cape WinelandsStellenbosch, Franschhoek and Paarl form the classic winelands triangle, about an hour inland from Cape Town.
- The Garden RouteThe Garden Route runs roughly from Mossel Bay to Storms River along the southern coast, and is the country's classic self-drive stretch.
- The Eastern CapeThe Eastern Cape's private reserves are malaria-free and sit within reach of the Garden Route, which is why they so often close a family itinerary.
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