Durban and KwaZulu-Natal Hotels & Resorts

People from all over the world come to Fugitives’ Drift to reimagine the Anglo-Zulu War. David and Nicky Rattray built the lodge in 1989 with a vision to bring the story back to life. The property overlooks the battlefields of Isandlwana and Rorke’s Drift, two locations that played a pivotal part in both South African and British military history. If you’ve seen the movie Zulu, you’ll be familiar with the spirit and drama of these encounters, but nothing illustrates these elements more beautifully than the art of story-telling with authentic insights from both the British and Zulu sides.

After David’s death, their son Douglas, followed in David’s footsteps. He inherited his father’s wonderful story-telling talents and recites the stories with an equal amount of passion and unique intelligence. The two other lecturers are Zulu men, Bryan Mcube who grew up on Rorke’s Drift, and Mphiwa Ntanzi, whose great grandfather fought in this very war – both Brian and Mphiwa offer authentic and insightful perspectives from the Zulu side.

The heroic events of 1879 play out in two stages. In the early morning, guests head to the Nqutu Escarpment, the high ground from which the Zulus attacked and where you’ll begin the rerun of the battle of Isandlwana. You’ll end in a natural amphitheatre facing the Isandlwana peak where you can relive some 20,000 Zulu warriors descending on the British troop of 1,800 and killing 1,300 of them, making it one of the greatest defeats in British colonial history.

In the afternoon, guests settle under a tree at Rorke’s Drift and listen with sheer anticipation to the sequel to Isandlwana. As dusk falls and the sun slips away, you’ll listen intently to the retelling of the final attacks on the remaining 139 British soldiers by 4,000 Zulu warriors, a battle that saw the award of eleven Victoria Crosses.

One of the most moving stories to be told about the battles between the Boer and British troops took place on the doorstep of Three Tree Hill Lodge. Specialising in the history of the South African War, (also known as the second Anglo-Boer War), with the Battle of Spioenkop being the focal point. The Battle of Spioenkop tour tells of the bloodiest single day in the entire South African War.

Astonishingly, Louis Botha, a young Winston Churchill and Mahatma Gandhi all played a role in this battle.

Out in the field near the town of Ladysmith expert guides Simon Blackburn and Ron Gold bring this tragic story to life. The lodge is full of historical memorabilia but not everyone is interested in visiting the battle site and so Ron will go to the lodge to do a pre-talk about the events leading up to the battle.

Kop means head in Dutch. Guests walk around the plateau of the kop where, with no knowledge of the local geology, the British soldiers found themselves digging incredibly shallow trenches. Even worse, when the mist lifted, the troops saw that they hadn’t climbed to the highest kop at all and were horribly exposed. A war correspondent, Winston Churchill, served as messenger between the soldiers on the kop and the generals below. The story is told in such an emotive way that you can almost feel the bullets and shells coming at you.

This tour is a real showcase for local heritage. Durban has the largest Indian community outside of India and the culture and tastes have had a huge influence on the local cuisine.

South Africa is known as a melting pot – in this region they’ve melted more into the pot than anyone else. When you eat an Indian dish, like masala for example, you are tasting a personal recipe. In Indian culture they have a saying, ‘no-one cooks as well as your mother,’ and that’s because it’s all down to personal preference. You mix and match from the raw ingredients – a pinch more garam masala; less of the fennel and so on. At Victoria Street Spice Market, each guest is given a dabba – a dish for collecting their own spices.

In South Africa, Indian cuisine grew from three key ingredients: chilli, tomatoes and coriander – foods that suited the climate and could be grown, in secret, between the rows of cane on Natal’s sugar plantation. Dishes including the Durban lamb curry and a delicious prawn and chicken combination, evolved here. Across South Africa you’ll also find bunny chow, a meat stew inside a ‘bowl’ of bread, mielies (sweet corn) cooked on the grill and tossed in masala butter, samosas and chilli bites, a type of dumpling made from chickpea flour, spices and finely chopped chilli ground into butter. You will get to taste some of these snacks on this tour.

Back at the hotel, the chef will talk through each dabba and recommend a dish to enhance those particular flavours. They will explain how to store and cook the ingredients and talk them through a recipe. The aim is for participants to be able to cook it at home and be reminded of their time in Durban.

In isiZulu, the word khula means to grow, and that was the vision when David and Nicky Rattray set out to found the David Rattray Foundation, now known as KHULA Education. At Fugitives’ Lodge the cost of your stay incudes a charitable contribution split between KHULA and Fugitives’ Drift Game Reserve. This helps ensure the development of schools as well as the sustainability of the surrounding environment and wildlife.

In the local communities of Rorke’s Drift and Isandlwana, 60% of the families live below the poverty line, so acknowledging this, in 2007 they decided to do their part. Aside from employing local staff at Fugitives’ Drift, they set up the foundation in the hope of contributing, not only to provide a good academic education for disadvantaged children but also life skills and job readiness – a programme helping final year students apply for tertiary study and prepping them for life after school.

In the foundation’s embryonic stages, the project supported local infrastructure through repairing school buildings as well as constructing classrooms and libraries. Upon witnessing the work first-hand, guests who visited the lodge and their family friends, began to contribute to the cause which allowed them to finish the building work and focus on the education itself.

Today, KHULA supports 21 schools, 6,000 children and 200 teachers. The results speak for themselves. Despite having limited to no exposure to English when they started pre-school, 80% of KHULA’s preschoolers were fluent by the end of their two years. After they graduate, the students consistently rank in the top 20% of the grade when they graduate from primary school. These statistics alone demonstrate how much the foundation has influenced the lives of the school youth in the KwaZulu-Natal province.