04 May 2024

Durban

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Other Africa Reviews

My Zulu extravaganza

From the golden sands of Durban to a Zulu dawn, Sky newsreader Vivien Creegor is entralled by her first taste of South Africa.

1 The lively coast of Durban 2 A hippo at the St Lucia park 3 A Durban surfer

SOUTH AFRICANS WILL DRIVE FIVE hours or more to spend a weekend in Durban and when I caught my first glimpse of it, I understood why.

The Golden Mile of beaches is Malibu, Marbella and Miami rolled into one and is lined with super-looking hotels such as the recently refurbished Balmoral.

My friend Michael von der Heyde had booked me a day room at the Durban Club and that was the first stop.

A lovely long shower later, we were heading up the Indian Ocean coast north to the Greater St Lucia Wetland Park. That evening we met Banhazl Horse Safaris, and Wayne Doben, who offers kayak safaris.

At 5pm, a truly tranquil time and where, back home, I’m usually preparing to read the Sky TV news, Wayne took me out on the lake, warning me that my posterior would get soaked as we edged out. But the reward for getting a wet bum was the sight of two enormous hippos.

The lake later provided a dark backdrop for another spectacular sight. We were standing just above its shores, gin and tonics in hand, when we saw a huge flash of green, mauve, red and yellow streak across the sky and explode. It was the remnants of a meteor entering the Earth’s atmosphere.

Day two brought another learning curve for my backside. I was on horseback for the first time, riding out into the bush with Andy and Michael. My horse, Streak, was, unnervingly, 15 hands high and the initial minutes were dodgy.

But within 20 minutes I had taken the reins from Andy, who led me, and managed not to catapult over Streak’s head when he needed a snack (every 20 yards).

There are no lions in the St Lucia park but elephants are to be reintroduced – the last were shot by hunters in the Twenties. However, we came across warthogs, vervet monkeys, zebra, reedbuck and bush pigs. There are two leopards but, alas, we never saw them.

We went from a night under canvas to luxury at the Makakatana Bay Lodge on the shores of St Lucia, five suites connected by wooden walkways.

Guests sit at a big table for meals in a convivial atmosphere. It was disconcerting seeing ‘reedbuck roast’ on the menu – watch ‘em by day eat ‘em by night.

After taking in the beautiful beaches of Cape Verde, we drove to Hluhluwe (pronounced ‘shloo-shloo-wee’) Park, where we saw an enormous white rhino with a much smaller female wallowing in mud.

The evening was devoted to Zulu culture. It would be easy to shy away from commercialism but the working village of Shakaland near the town of Eshowe is fun – especially drinking Zulu beer with the chief and his wives and watching traditional dancing. For the tourists, there are rooms styled like Zulu huts and a bar and dining room with wonderful views.

From there it was on to Rorke’s Drift and the lovely Fugitives’ Drift Lodge run by David Rattray – a great storyteller and friend of Prince Charles. David drove me and six other guests to the Rorke’s Drift site and enthralled us with the tale of the 1879 battle when 4,000 Zulu warriors were seen off by 100 or so British, who won more Victoria Crosses than in any other battle.

That evening we made our way to the town of Dundee and Lennox Cottage, a guesthouse belonging to ex-Springbok Dirk Froneman and his wife Salome, an amazing cook.

It was a relatively short hop to another stop on the Anglo-Boer Battlefields route, Spion Kop. Michael’s historian wife Nicki had driven three hours from Durban to tell me the story of the mistake the British made when they climbed a hill in darkness to get one over on the Boers as they tried to relieve the besieged town of Ladysmith.

At dawn they found they were sitting ducks for the Boers. The graves lie on the hilltop where the men fell.

Three Tree Hill Lodge nearby looks out over Spion Kop nature Reserve and there are six guest cottages, each with magnificent views. I could lie in the bath and, with binoculars, watch the animals roaming the reserve.

The next day involved a lot of driving to position ourselves for an assault on the Sani Pass into Lesotho. We drove into Mooi River, the delightful artists’ town of Nottingham Road (where Nelson Mandela was arrested in 1962) and ended up for the night in Underberg and the Valemount Country Lodge to sample the hospitality of Gayelynn and Dave Marais.

The next morning we took the hair-raising zigzag road known as the Sani Pass, which climbs the face of the Drakensberg mountains, from the kingdom of the Zulu to the mountain kingdom of Lesotho.

It’s breathtaking, once you work up the nerve to open your eyes. At the summit we had a drink in the Sani Top Chalet, ‘the highest pub in Africa’.

Going down wasn’t too bad – maybe a couple of glasses of wine helped – and the ‘wow’ factor of the scenery could be appreciated.

With a final night at Michael and Nicki’s house in Durban, that was it – a breakneck 1,300 miles in eight days, an array of experiences, lots of welcoming people and a feeling that I have oodles of South Africa left to explore.

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