KwaZulu-Natal is the most ecologically diverse of South Africa’s nine provinces. It is bounded to the east by a magnificent 800km Indian Ocean coastline of wide sandy sun-drenched beaches hemmed in by the world’s tallest forested dunes. In complete contrast, its western border is formed by the formidable rock buttresses and burnished escarpment of the Maloti-Drakensberg Park, a 200km-long montane wilderness whose 3000-plus metre peaks are frequently dusted with snow in winter.
Between these extremes, KwaZulu-Natal hosts a rare and alluring biodiversity: enchanted mist-belt forests alive with monkeys, squirrels and a blissful bewilderment of birdsong; grassy midlands whose soft green contours and temperate climate evoke the finest of English summer days on eternal replay; coral gardens that swirl with colourful fish, ancient whale migration routes, frolicsome schools of dolphins and gigantic marine turtles that come ashore nocturnally to nest; and, last but not least, this being Africa, there are also vast tracts of classic thorny savannah roamed by lion, elephant and other safari favourites — including the world’s densest population of both black and white rhinoceros.