Paulpietersburg, Battlefields

Paulpietersburg is a small, pretty town nestling in the foothills of the Dumbe Mountain - a big, flat-topped, triangular mountain in the middle of flatlands territory, popular with paragliders and hikers and named after the wild dumbe fruit which grows on its slopes.

Paulpietersburg is also on the Rainbow Route, an alternative means of reaching the coast that starts in Mpumalanga and passes through Paulpietersburg, Vryheid, Melmoth, and Piet Retief and ends in the town of Mtunzini. Paulpietersburg is only 3.5 hours drive from Johannesburg and Durban and popular with visitors because of the nine hot and cold mineral water pools at the Natal Spa just 9 km outside of town. The spa is fed by a natural, hot spring that surfaces on the southern approaches to the 1536m Dumbe Mountain.

The town was named in 1888 in honour of then Boer president Paul Kruger and Voortrekker hero, Pieter Joubert and is on the Battlefields Route, which pays homage to a number of fierce Anglo-Boer and Anglo-Zulu battles that ensued during the late 1800s and early 1900s in this part of the world. The Ntombe battlefield, on the north bank of the Ntombe River, a tributary of the Phongola River, is where Captain Mortiarty, some 60 troops and a number of camp attendants were overrun and killed by Zulu Impi during the Anglo-Zulu War.

Other attractions include Fort Clery in Lüneburg. This fort was built in 1879 and whilst you are there, the village of Lüneburg is the original settlement of the German Lutheran missionaries and the oldest German school in Northern KwaZulu Natal is in the village. Mkuze Game Reserve is close by and Swaziland, with its beautiful, scenic drives and casinos is within easy reach.