Isimangaliso Wetland is a park streching over 220km from the Mozambique border to Saint Lucia. This 328,000 hectare park is a Unesco World Heritage Site famous for its five distinct ecosystems. Beaches, woodlands, lakes, wetlands, forest, there is something for every taste ! Isimangaliso Wetland Park is a home to an exceptional diversity of animals, birds and marine life. Zebras, antelopes, hippos and rhinos can be easily spotted and the park offers some of Zululand's best birdwatching. Moreover, the park is renowned for its whales and dolphins watching and its turtle tracking. A lot of activities like horse riding, deep sea fishing or snorkelling are available  There is lodges inside the park (pretty expensive) but you can easily visit the eastern and western shores of Isimangaliso Wetland from St Lucia.

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The park is divided in four region, each of them have its own landmarks and specificities :

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EASTERN SHORE

Mission Rocks, Bats Cave, Cape Vidal,

Mount Tabor Lookout, Mfazana Bird Hide

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WESTERN SHORE

Fani's Island, Charters Creek

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SODWANA BAY

Scuba diving

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KOSI BAY

Four lakes (need a 4WD)

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SELF-DRIVE SAFARI IN THE EASTERN SHORE

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We explored the eastern shore of Isimangaliso Wetland with a self-drive safari (on our own), and it was awesome ! We drove through the woodlands and took durt road in the forest. There is many landmark where you can stop on the way. You can have a short walk through the forest and admire the hundreds of species of plants, have a break on the beach and try to spot a whale and stop in few view points to contemplate the wild landscape. On our own drive safari we had the chance to spot few rhinos, some hippos, many zebras, buffalos, antelopes and dozens of velvet monkeys! Many tourist agencies offer Safari Tour in Isimangaliso, but we will defenitly recommand to do a self-drive. It is really easy to spot animals by yourself and you don"t really need a guide to help you spot them. If you want to put money in a tour safari, we"ll recommand to go to Hluhluwe iMfolozi or another park renowned for its huge variety of wild animal. Having a guide is interesting for spoting predators or shy animals (the hardest to see), and there is none of them in Isimangaliso. Therefor, it is much better to discover the park and its widlife by yourslef, the experience is magical and spectacular.

If you want to have a swim, you can stop in Cape Vidal, a beautiful beach renowned for its forested sand dunes and its excellence for swimming and snorkeling. We visited Isimangaliso in july (winter in South Africa) and the park was pretty empty. We actually passed only 2 cars during our self-drive safari (full day). The only place where there was quite a lot of tourists was on the beach in Cape Vidal. So we guess that this beach should be crowded during the summer season.