Hluhluwe-iMfolozi Park

Proclaimed on 30 April 1895 by the Natal colonial government, Hluhluwe-iMfolozi is widely documented as the oldest proclaimed nature reserve in Africa. Managed today by Ezemvelo KZN Wildlife, the roughly 960 km2 park unites two historic reserves: the misty, forested hills and grasslands of the northern Hluhluwe section and the open savannah of the southern iMfolozi, laced by the Black and White iMfolozi rivers. Long before European settlement, this country served as a royal hunting ground of the Zulu kingdom.

The park is best known as the place that saved the southern white rhinoceros. By the late nineteenth century the subspecies had been hunted to the edge of oblivion, with a remnant population surviving in iMfolozi. In the 1950s and 1960s, warden Ian Player and his team launched Operation Rhino, capturing and relocating animals to re-establish white rhino across their former range. The reserve remains one of the world's most significant strongholds for the species, though rhino here, as elsewhere, face ongoing pressure from poaching.

It is the only state-run park in KwaZulu-Natal where all of the Big Five (lion, leopard, elephant, buffalo and rhino) occur, alongside more than 80 mammal species and hundreds of birds. Self-drive routes and guided walks fan out from camps such as Hilltop and Mpila. Visitors should note the park lies in a low-risk (not malaria-free) zone, so precautions in the wet summer months are sensible; the dry winter is both the coolest season for travel and the finest for spotting game.