Bluff Nature Reserve

About Bluff Nature Reserve

Considered the oldest bird sanctuary in Durban, you will find the beautiful 45 hectare Bluff Nature Reserve right next to its counterpoint - the Engen oil refinery - in Tara Road on the Bluff, not far from Brighton Beach.

Did you know? Bird hides and self-guided trails are the main attraction at Bluff Nature Reserve, but there are also picnic and braai facilities.

The Bluff Nature Reserve is well worth a visit for its fresh water pan, wetlands and patch of coastal lowland forest. In the reserve is a diverse plant life as well as a large number of water birds that include the common purple gallinule and rare lesser jacana.

Even though everyone knows the Bluff and its accompanying beaches, particularly Brighton Beach and Anstey's, it is one of the most underrated areas of the city. Most of the headland (bluff) lies on the remains of a huge coastal dune system that formed on this shoreline around five million years ago.

In the past people who grew up on the Bluff were regarded as 'rough and tough'. If you lived in other parts of Durban, you seldom ventured out here, unless it was to come to the beaches. As a result, the nature reserve has remained obscure to most.

Today the suburb is something of a motley crew. There are areas that are pretty with impressive homes, and then there are eyesores like the oil refinery. But the Bluff Nature Reserve compensates for this, providing reed beds for roosting and breeding of waterfowl, herons and egrets, even if Egyptian and spur-winged geese, swamp hens and coots tend to dominate the scene.

Follow the trail that leads through coastal bush remnants and reed beds to the elevated hides that overlook the vlei.