St Lucia Estuary

St Lucia is the estuary at the southern end of iSimangaliso Wetland Park, South Africa's first UNESCO natural World Heritage site, and it is a genuine estuarine lake - about sixty kilometres long, shallow, and switching between fresh and saline as the mouth opens and closes. It holds one of the largest hippo and Nile crocodile populations in the country, and boat cruises from the town jetty go out among them in the afternoon. The town itself is inside the park, unfenced, and hippos graze the verges and gardens after dark; signs warn people off the streets at night and the warnings are serious rather than decorative. Around the estuary are dune forest, grassland and some of the highest vegetated dunes in the world along the coast behind. Turtles nest on the beaches north of here in summer, and whales pass offshore in winter.

History

Survivors of the Portuguese ship São Bento named the area Rio dos Medos do Ouro, river of the gold dunes, in 1554, and on 13 December 1575, the feast of Saint Lucy, Manuel Perestrelo renamed the river mouth Santa Lucia. In the scramble for Africa the German Adolf Lüderitz won the right to set up a protectorate at St Lucia Bay on 24 April 1884, but Germany gave up its claim on 7 May 1885 in the face of British claims. The St Lucia Game Reserve was proclaimed in 1895, the lake and the turtle beaches and coral reefs of Maputaland were listed under the Ramsar Convention in 1971, and in December 1999 the wetland park, now iSimangaliso, became a World Heritage Site (Wikipedia, St Lucia, South Africa).

What you'll find

• Hippos in the streets - animals grazing the town at night, with real warnings attached.
• The estuary cruises - afternoon boats among hippo pods and crocodiles.
• The UNESCO wetland - South Africa's first natural World Heritage site.
• The dune forest - some of the highest vegetated dunes anywhere behind the beach.

When to go

May to September for comfort and game; November to February for turtle nesting further north. Two days.

Practical notes

Hippos kill people - do not walk the town at night, and keep well back at the water. Summer is hot, humid and has malaria risk in the wider area. The estuary mouth silts and opens, changing what boats can do. Crocodile presence means no swimming anywhere in the system.

Nearby

Cape Vidal is north inside the park; Hluhluwe-iMfolozi is inland.

Key facts