Towering above the coastal plain of KwaZulu Natal and flanked by rugged cliffs a thousand metres high, the tabletop mountains of Drakensberg offer up some of South Africa's most epic landscapes. Gazing up from the base of the jaw-dropping cliffs of the Amphitheatre, an 8km sweep of sheer bare rock as massive and forbidding as a fortress wall, it's not hard to see why the Zulu know this country as uKhahlamba, the "barrier of spears".
The basalt plateaus of Drakensberg have seen human occupation stretching back at least 40,000 years. The most haunting legacy of this record of habitation is found in rock shelters throughout the range, where San bushmen painted one of the greatest concentrations of rock art in the world. Finely detailed and exquisitely coloured in earthy tones of red ochre, they provide a beautiful and evocative record of the world these hunter gatherers knew – a life that only disappeared from these mountains in the last century.
But it's not just about the art: Drakensberg also boasts the best mountain trekking in Southern Africa, and this is a landscape that begs you to lace up your boots and strike out for distant peaks. Our Drakensberg tours offer plenty of opportunities to get out on the trail and pit your muscles against the mountains, whether you want to tackle the vertigo-inducing chains and ladders of the Amphitheatre, or experience local tribal culture on a multi-day trek through the beautiful foothills.