Shongweni Resources Reserve

About Shongweni Resources Reserve

You'll find the Shongweni Resource Reserve roughly halfway between Durban and Pietermarizburg, off the N3 and on Route 6 of the 1000 Hills Experience.

Did you know? Activities in the reserve include camping, picnicking, fishing (for which you will need a permit), passive water sports, horse riding and 4x4 trails.

Its setting is a mixture of grassland and river valley and its sell factor is that you can see any number of game – rhino, zebra, giraffe, kudu, buffalo and wildebeest – and do self-guided walking trails through the reserve.

The bird life alone is pretty spectacular and worth visiting for.

What appears to be simply bushveld is actually three different types of vegetation – plateau, slope and riverine wood land, giving one access to nesting birds like the lanner falcon, rock martin and African black swift, and white-backed night herons breeding in fig trees that hang over the water, as well as mocking cliff-chats that nest on vertical rock faces. Whilst the riverine forest allows sightings of red-chested cuckoo, Cape robin-chats, ashy flycatchers and sunbirds.

Other game includes black backed jackal, dassies or rock hyrax, warthog, mongoose, waterbuck, caracal and other little duiker species.

The diversity of vegetation is kind on the eye too – cliff faces, waterfalls, rivers, a dam, open grassland and bushveld form beautiful backdrops for sighting animals.

The horse riding is one of the high points (with the polo grounds just around the corner, this should come as no surprise) and trails meander past waterfalls, through forests and other vegetation that one might not see from the car.

The Shongweni Resource Reserve lies east of the Shongweni Dam Nature Reserve if you take the Shongweni/Assagay off ramp and follow signs. The Ntshongweni Dam, however, lies closest to the Resource Reserve.