So after a really quick planning session Deb and I set of towards KwaZulu Natal. The idea was to head towards the Royal Natal National Park, to take a look at where Zulu was filmed and then to head on to the accommodation we had booked in the area of Rourke’s Drift and ISandlwana. The first part of the drive went well and we got ourselves down to the area of Harrismith Just after lunch. From there, after quick stops for lunch and fuel, we headed for the National Park. Sadly, our hopes of making the place turned sour when we took a left onto the road leading to the park, only to find the road in a bloody awful state of repair. It looked as if they had started road works, ripping up all the tarmac and breaking it into small’ish lumps and then dumped frsh gravel ready to re-make the road. Unfortunately this was as far as they had got. After several very slow kilometres of this we decided that we would be better served by turning round and heading back the way we had come, otherwise it was looking like gone midnight before we arrived at our guest house.
We arrived at the Penny-farthing Lodge and settled in for supper at what turned out to be a very pleasant guest house, in the middle of nowhere, with a very long dirt track from the main road. The place was run by For Vermaak who certainly has a sense of humour. About three quarters of the way along the dirt drive there is a small brick building on the side of which he has attached a sign – Don’t Despair, Nearly There! Perfectly placed, as we encountered it just as we were wondering if we should turn back.
The following morning, after breakfast, we setout for Rorke’s Drift with Foy as our guide for the day. The path from the lodge to the drift follows what was the old wagon track which the British ox-carts would have taken to get to the place, over two days and descending 500+ meters into the process. In some places the road was very steep and you can only imagine what it must have been like to try a fully laden ox cart down the route. Thankfully it did not take us quite so long and we arrived at Rourke’s Drift sometime after 11.
The site itself presents a very different view now to that from 1879. None of the original buildings remain, although there is a ‘replica’ of the hospital building on the spot where the hospital once stood. There is a church where the old commissary once stood and between the two, marked out in double lines of stones, are the indications of where the mealie bags, wagons and biscuit box barricades were built. The site is incredibly small. I don’t think it could have been half the size of the site pictured in the film Zulu, but it’s very size is a major contributor to the outcome of the battle, being so small it was much easier to defend with the numbers available to Chard and Bromhead. That being said, it could have been a very different outcome none the less, had the Zulus not dispensed with their normal ‘horns of the bull’ approach and concentrated on attacking on side of the site at a time. The museum on the site is very good and gives you an excellent grasp of how the action unfolded. There is also an amazingly details 3D map of the terrain from Rorke’s Drift, well past ISandlwana to show as far as Chelmsford had taken the main body of troops. Foy used this map/,odel to give us a very good account of the days actions at both ISandlwana and Rorke’s Drift before we toured the site.
After a picnic lunch at the Drift we headed off for ISandlwana, for the second part of our days tour. After a brief look around the museum situated within the village it was off to the battlefield for what turned out to be a quite emotional experience. For anyone not familiar with this battle it was a terrible defeat for the British in which the 1300+ troops which were in the camp were pretty much all killed by the Zulus. There were some 17 survivors who managed to escape down a route called the fugitive trail and cross the Buffalo River at the now named Fugitive’s Drift. Other than this every man who was in the camp was killed. Although Lord Chelmsford was back at the site later the same day it was only for an overnight stop after which he departed with the rest of his forces. It was some 5 months later before the dead were buried. The battlefield today is littered with cairns of stones painted white. Each one representing a mass grave of 6 or more (in some cases many more) soldiers who were buried where they fell. Looking around the field and seeing all the cairns one cannot help but be moved by the tragedy of loss of life on such a sale. I have visited many battlefields in my time but never any with an atmosphere like ISandlwana. It felt far more like a cemetery or such than a battlefield and this is what you are conscious of for the whole time you are there. The site itself is physically very imposing too, with the very distinctive hill (which also has cairns on top) dominating the scene, and it is amazing what a field of view you have looking back to Rorke’s Drift and ahead to where Lord Chelmsford thought he had found the main Zulu army! (You can also see in the distance to where Zulu Dawn was filmed.) The spot where the Zulu commander stood on the day makes you wonder if the view he had of the battle as it unfolded was not somewhat beyond his expectations – he was so perfectly placed to see all the action. Hopefully my photos will give an idea of the layout and the scale of the place, but if you are ever in SA and in Natal in particular I would definitely recommend a visit and, if he’s still about, Foy makes an excellent guide for your day out.
