Author: Lisa Johnston: Multimedia Images.
Source: Southern Africa’s top 21 parks taken from the April 2010 Issue of Getaway Magazine.
The largest land mammal shares an ecosystem with the world’s oldest fish and biggest marine mammal in iSimangaliso Wetland Park. Lisa Johnston visits KwaZulu-Natal’s Eden.
The people who are fortunate enough to live in KwaZulu-Natal’s iSimangaliso Wetland Park like to bang on about how it possesses a ‘sense of place’. It’s not too much of a stretch to see why this small Eden inspires so much passion – beach and bush lie side-by-side and you’re as likely to find leopard spoor on the shoreline as turtle tracks.
The open stretches of beach on iSimangaliso’s Eastern Shores invite hours of exploration among the rock pools.
It’s precisely this biodiversity that got it listed as South Africa’s first World Heritage Site – there’s no other place in the world with a comparable ecological footprint.
The 332 000-hectare park boasts eight interlinking ecosystems, 25 000-year-old coastal dunes, five turtle species, 100 types of butterfly, more than 2 000 plant species, the top frog count in the country and more than half of South Africa’s bird species (526). Elephant, black and white rhino, oribi, cheetah, buffalo and wild dog have also been reintroduced to the park.
As Nelson Mandela so aptly put it in a speech to mark the reintroduction of elephants to the park in 2001: “The Wetland Park must be the only place on the globe where the world’s oldest land mammal (the rhinoceros) and the world’s biggest terrestrial mammal (the elephant) share an ecosystem with the world’s oldest fish (the coelacanth) and the world’s biggest marine mammal (the whale).’
All of which is good for conservation and even better for affordable, self-drive tourism. Many roads in the park have now been tarred or graded, allowing relatively easy access to St Lucia, Cape Vidal, False Bay, Mkhuze, Sodwana Bay and Kosi Bay.
There are plenty of accommodation choices, including B&Bs in St Lucia, a range of Ezemvelo KZN Wildlife camps – which offer family-style units and camping – and upmarket offerings from concessionaires, such as iSibindi Africa and Wilderness Safaris.
Travel adviser
When to visit
iSimangaliso experiences sunny skies throughout the year. Summer is the rainy season and it can get extremely hot and humid from December to February. The winter months are dry and better for game viewing. South African school holidays bring upwards of 60000 visitors to the beaches, so stay away if you don’t like crowds.
How to get there
Take the N2 north from Durban and follow connecting roads, depending on which park gate you want to reach. The main links are the R618 to St Lucia or the R22, which links to popular areas such as Sodwana Bay and Kosi Bay.
Park fees and opening hours
At Maphelane, Eastern Shores and Mkhuze, entry is from 05h00 to 19h00 from November to March and from 06h00 to 18h00 from April to October.
At Western Shores, False Bay and Kosi Bay, entry is from 06h00 to 18h00. Sodwana Bay has 24-hour access, year round.
For more information, detailed directions and maps, go on-line.
This article was taken from the back issue of Getaway. April 2010 Special Edition.
| More info on the town of St Lucia | More info on the Elephant Coast area |
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