The Drakensberg, Africa’s highest mountain range south of Kilimanjaro, contains the largest and most concentrated series of rock art paintings in Africa – making the uKhahlamba Drakensberg Park a World Heritage site of both natural and cultural significance.
The Sterkfontein Dam, Central Drakensberg, KwaZulu-Natal
Both the Zulu name uKhahlamba (barrier of spears) and the Afrikaans name Drakensberg (dragon mountains) fit the formidable horizon created by the range.
The park lies in the west of KwaZulu-Natal on the Lesotho border. It is 242 000ha in size, stretching 150 kilometres from Royal Natal National Park in the north to Cobham Forest Station in the south.
For more than 4 000 years the mountains were home to the indigenous San people, who created a vast body of rock art – the largest collection in Africa.
Living in the sandstone caves and rock shelters of the Drakensberg’s valleys, the San made paintings described by the World Heritage Committee as “world famous and widely considered one of the supreme achievements of humankind … outstanding in quality and diversity of subject and in their depiction of animals and human beings … which throws much light on their way of life and their beliefs”.
The natural heritage of the park can only be described as exceptional in its soaring basaltic buttresses, incisive dramatic cutbacks and golden sandstone ramparts with rolling high altitude grasslands, pristine steep-sided river valleys and rocky gorges.
The Park offers great hiking, camping, horse-riding, San rock art, luxury hotels, and majestic views.
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