The Greater St Lucia Wetland Park was declared a World Heritage Site on the 1 December 1999.
The park is situated in the northeast coast of KwaZulu-Natal in the kingdom of the Zulu.
With a surface of 328000 hectare and an impressive 280km long coastline the park is
considered the third-largest in South Africa.

Five eco systems packed tightly together in a small area warranting the status of World Heritage Site. The marinesystem in the east stretching west to some of the highest vegetated sand dune forests
in the world to the largest esturine system in Africa, to grasslands, bushlands and in
the north huge swamp marsh and papyrus reed areas.

The combination of these systems is so  unique in the world waranting this world heritage status.
The park starts south of the St Lucia estuary mouth and reaches up north to Mozambique.

Lake St Lucia's is a 65 km long estuarine system, widest point 21 km, total area 330 sq km.
 The St Lucia Estuary and Lake St Lucia are the home of the biggest population  of croc's and hippo's in South Africa. The last count of 2500 crocodile's larger then 1.5 metres  and 1500 hippo's  ,

140 Species of salt and fresh water fish, many of which use the estuary as a nursary and breeding ground.

The worldwide threatened Leatherback turtle's ( see picture below) swim thousands of miles to lay their eggs
on our titanium rich dunes and golden beaches.

Numorous numbers of whales are sited off our coast during our winter months making us the
home of the big six. Whale watching tours are very popular with sitings of mostly the southern
hump back whale and less of other species, minkies southern write etc. An abundance of dolphin
and other sealife can also be seen.


For the bird lover there are 500+ species of birds.
Here is a link to our Birding-page with information and some beautiful photographs
by Jan Vandenbroeck, a Belgian friend and ardend bird-watcher and photographer.

As you can see, there are very few parts of the world that can boast with the bio diversity
that we are so blessed with.

Some pictures taken IN and around town...

A bit of history

St. Lucia was founded in 1554 by the survivors of the Portuguese ship Saint Benedict. It was
called "Rio de Areias de Ouro (river of the sand of Gold).
At this stage the Tugela rivermouth (aprox. 100 Km South) was also known as the St. Lucia
river. Later, in 1575, both the Tugel river and St. Lucia got their current name.

Some other settlers in the region followed in 1828. A British expedition surveyd this area.
Lieutenant Vidal was the captain of his ship named h.M.S. leven'. They gave there names to
Cape Vidal and Leven Point. Mission Rocks named later in 1888, was a catholic mission
station established on the Eastern Shores, approximately 10 km north of the St. Lucia
mouth.

In the 19th century, the inhabitants survived on large-scale hunting of ivory, rhinoceros
horn and hippopotamuses.
Fortunately Paul Kruger a famous president of south africa realised the ecological value of
this paradise and proclaimed the area a nature reserve on 27 April 1897.
The original reserve however only included Lake St Lucia and an area of one kilometre radious
around the lake.
This original reserve of 36826 ha is considered as the oldest permanent reserve in Africa.