I have decided to do a day by day review of our reccent trip to Zululand with Ian Knight ,there was so much to see and do and between Elaine and myself we took well over 1000 photographs . Ian Knight met us at Heathrow before our flight out ,Ian has been one of my favourite authors for many years and I am glad to say he is a fantastic person with a great sense of humour and a real passion for the AZW and the Zulu people and culture . After a very long flight to Johannesburg we were rushed through the airport to a plane to fly us to Durban ,where we met Paul our South African tour manager ,a ex south african soldier who is now a very succesful architect who again just loves the Zulu history , he got us through some awkward moments with the white boers and kept Ian moving along and regailed us with amazing stories each night .Our Driver was a zulu called April who was a very well educated man who could speak 11 languages . On the way to our first hotel we visited Stanger ,which even though it was a modern town it set the tone for our trip as it was very run down .Situated in Stanger is the King Shaka's visitor centre ,which contains a small museum and a video presentation covering Shaka ,the founding of the Zul nation and the AZW , there is also a small representation of a Zulu home and the main point of interest a monument over the assumed grave of King Shaka next to which is his favourite sitting stone on which he was sat when assinated by 2 of his brothers . There were also some local craftsmen making zulu related items and Ian bought a collection of Zulu spears and shield sticks . After this we moved onto our Hotel for the first night the Princess Grant ,a 5 star golfing hotel situated on the Indian Ocean coast .We had our first wildlife encounters to day as well with Giant Locusts and Monkeys trying to invade our room .After lunch we went to Fort Pearson ,a staging post for the first invasion which overlooks the Tugela River and the site of a couple of very early battles between 2 Zulu factions and a skirmish between early white settlers and the Zulus ,There is a small cemertery containg the remains of British and colonial troops who succumed to disease including the Royal Engineer Warren Wynn whose letters and diaries were turned into the book A widow Making War .After veiwing the remains of the fort and cemetery we walked down to the sie of the ultimatum tree , the spot where Bartel Freres unacceptable demands were made to the Zulus and which in turn started the Anglo Zulu War of 1879 . The area is actually a few trees grouped together which provided a shaded area for the Zulu delegation to sit ,one tree was later picked out as the Ultimatum tree but this was swept away in a storm although s new tree was then planted on the same spot . After a encounter with a crocodile on the Tugela and a superb supper we retired for the night .To borrow a qoute from Zulu Dawn "what a wonderful adventure we undertake ,what a marvelous spree".
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| Shakas Grave the large building in the background is where Shaks home was originally |
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| a rather large locust at least 5 inches long |
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| Ian pointing out the Shaka story |
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| The Tugela crossing point just this side of the modern bridge |
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| The grave of wynn |
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| The Ultimatum Tree |
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| a sign in our room at Princess Grant |
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