Other Towns

"One who smells out" in Zulu, named after a man eating crocodile once in the area and finally killed by Shaka.

Named after the nickname of the wife (Catherine Renetta) of a partner of the firm that bought surrounding land, Park Rynie is a small town with a slipway as a relic of an old whaling station.

There is a large tourist stall in this area on the old main road and at the Shell Ultra City petrol station on the freeway. The stalls display beadwork, grasswork, carvings, mats and fruit.

A centre for diving off the Aliwal Shoal, the resort also boasts a tidal pool and golf course. Umkhomazi means the 'place of the cow whales' because large numbers of whales would use the estuary of the river to calf.

The shoal, some 4km offshore is named after the barque that spotted the reef in 1849.

Just South of Amanzimtoti, this town was named after Dick King, who passed this way. The borough incorporates several smaller settlements - Warner Beach, Winkelspruit, Karridene, Illovo Beach and Lorna Doone - a total of 8km of beaches.

Winkelspruit ('shop stream') derives its name from the salvage of goods from a wrecked vessel which were disposed of by the hurried setting up of a shop on the beach.

Lorna Doone was previously called Middleton but to avoid confusion with another, its name was taken from the name of a house overlooking the railway.

The site of the first production of sugar by a public company in Natal. The town is close to the Vernon Crookes Nature Reserve.

King Shaka of the Zulus surprised a tribe of cannibals in this area. In order to ensure good fortune, before engaging them, Shaka followed an ancient custom.

He picked up a pebble with his left foot and transferred it to his right hand where he spat on it, offered a prayer of supplication and placed it on the ground. Each one of his soldiers did the same.

This heap of 'lucky stones ('vivanes') is one of the most famous in South Africa.

The beaches afford excellent bathing, angling and surfing. In 1837, the barque Ivy was wrecked off the shore carrying a cargo of liquor. The local population had a salvage operation that lasted for some weeks.

The Sithela Country Estate offers a tour of an ethnic school, clinic, courthouse and sangoma training school.

The small town (nothing like its British namesake) is a popular holiday resort with a lagoon at the mouth of the Bilanhlolo River on which boats can be hired.

The area was first settled in 1922 by an artist who built himself a shack on the edge of the lagoon. Riverbend Crocodile Farm - commercial farm producing 3000 hatchlings annually is nearby.

More than 200 Nile crocs on display up to monsters of 4.5m. There is an audio visual experience and a croc museum, restaurant and art gallery.

Set up in 1875 when a ship foundered off the coast bound for Durban. The cargo was salvaged and sold on the banks of the river as water damaged goods, hence Winkelspruit - Afrikaans: 'Shop on the Stream'. A resort with a tidal pool and caravan site.

Trafalgar is an unspoilt village with a splendid beach. The Marine Reserve is popular with anglers and board sailors and was established to protect the marine cretaceous fossil beds. It extends 500m out to sea.

Anerley is part of a complex of four resorts - Sunwich Port, Southport and Sea Park. All offer wide, sandy beaches and superb surfing.

Club Tropicana Youth Sanctuary is an old fruit farm that teaches craft and hospitality skills to the local community. Guests can stay here and be just that or volunteer to help in the local villages to build trail huts, schools or clinics.

A small reserve of coastal forest and grassland. There are walking trails, picnic sites and and a tidal pool on the beach.

The sugar baron Sir Frank Reynolds built a stately mansion called Botha House after General Louis Botha and bequeathed it to the nation as an official home of South Africa's Prime Ministers.

It was offered to King George VI in 1951 for his recuperation from lung cancer surgery. Renovations were well under way when he died.

Hibberdene is the gateway to the Hibiscus Coast. There is a tidal pool and the tree fringed beach has protected bathing. The town is named after a former Postmaster General of Natal, Maxwell-Hibberd.

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