The ZuluWaters Story

In early 2003 Ian Gowrie-Smith, Australian born, UK based businessman, began his search for a rural investment that could provide some of thesimpler pleasures in life – some meditative fishing, horseback riding amongst wildlife, leisurely massages, good food, comfortable accommodation and companionship in a timelessly beautiful place. ZuluWaters, which lies in the foothills of the Drakensberg in KwaZulu Natal, South Africa proved to be the ultimate destination. A dedicated team designed and built a luxuriously comfortable lodge with rustic appeal and passionately restored the land and indigenous wildlife. In doing so they developed an enterprise of social upliftment and successful experimental conservation. ZuluWaters Game Reserve was born. Over the following five years six more grazing farms were consolidated into what eventually became ZuluWaters, straddling as it does the middle reaches of the Bushmans River. It is now a 3,000 hectare reserve dedicated to restoring the hard-used land to indigenous flora and fauna. It is now recognised as a pioneering effort in environmental conservation, the ZuluWaters Trust having steered the property to becoming one of the first private Nature Reserves in KZN under the provincial Wildlife Stewardship Program. Alien gum, wattle and poplar plantations were cleared, watercourses re-habilitated and indigenous grasses planted, then indigenous game re-introduced to bring the land back to its former glory. New, however, is the added element of the sustainably built tourism and associated structures on top of, around or alongside the old stone farm buildings which blend into a pleasing and harmonious modern interpretation of the pioneer farms. Ultimately ZuluWaters provides a luxury lodge experience whose primary attraction is a personalized, tailor made integrated African experience that is bound to leave you ‘a little more’ - a little more exhilarated, a little more inspired, a little more human.