Ntumeni is ideal horse country with its cool, bracing air and rolling hills of sugar cane and pockets of lush mist-belt forest. The birdlife is prolific and the rich habitat also supports a variety of small mammals. Visitors who take their time to explore this well-kept secret destination - either on horseback or hiking - will not be disappointed.
Ntumeni
Welcome to Ntumeni
King Mpande gave permission to the Rev Hans Schreuder of the Norwegian Mission Society to start a mission station at Ntumeni in the early 1850's. Schreuder was a man of immense physical strength, and an accomplished classical scholar, with considerable practical skill in the trades such as carpentry.
He succeeded in winning the king over through his medical knowledge and he was able to ease King Mpande's many minor ailments. He even constructed a mobile wooden chair (now in the Zululand Mission Museum in Eshowe) to enable the obese king to move around. The original church building has been renovated.......
Today Ntumeni is a thriving farming community with pockets of beautiful forest fringed by fields of sugarcane, timber and avocados.
There is accommodation in a village developed around a now unused sugar mill.Ntumeni Forest & Nature Reserve
Ntumeni Forest & Nature Reserve
About 15 kms past Dlinza Forest on the Nkandla road is the turn-off to the Ntumeni Nature Reserve, which is often overlooked by visitors to Dlinza. Where Dlinza can be sombre - Zulu legends always connect it with burials and meditation, Ntumeni is enchanting and historically it has a happy association with the dashing younger brother of King Cetshwayo, Prince Dabulamanzi, who had his Royal homestead near the forest |
Some Zulu Translations: 'idlinza' - a grave'ukudlinza' - to meditate or ponder 'ntumeni' - the place of bitter apples 'dabulamanzi' - parting the water 'upiti' - a duiker 'ukhozi' - eagle 'unkonka' - male bushbuck 'impunzi' - female bushbuck |
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The 750-hectare Reserve is the forest of one's childhood fantasies. It has a particularly high and impressive canopy provided by trees such as the Giant umzimbeet, the African Wild Plum and Flatcrowns. It is filled with fern-covered gorges and waterfalls and the understorey is open and uncrowded making it easy to spot the gems of the forest which are its cycads and colonies of clivia. It was here that the celebrated yellow clivia (Clivia miniata var. citrina) was discovered in the 1880s and grown by the Resident Commissioner Sir Melmoth Osborn in his garden in Eshowe. |
There are no facilities other than a clearing in the forest with two picnic tables and two trails which start at the picnic site. The uPiti Trail is a circular route and takes about two hours to walk. The uKhozi Trail takes about four hours and covers some strenuous terrain through a gorge. The halfway point is at a spectacular waterfall on the Ngoje stream. Rare Longtailed Wagtails are often observed along the stream. Birding can be very rewarding and several species - such as the Yellow-streaked Greenbul, Brown Scrub-Robin, Gorgeous Bush-Shrike, Bald Ibis and the African Finfoot - are found in this forest but not in the nearby Dlinza Forest. As with Dlinza, both the Blue Duiker and the bushbuck occur in the forest. The grasslands in the reserve are home to a herd of zebra. |
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Accommodation
Ntumeni Accommodation
| Entumeni Horse Trails and Retreat: Accommodation in cottages converted from former staff housing at the local sugar mill, with stabling and grooming facilities for guests wanting to enjoy the rolling hills with its forests and streams on horseback. |  |
Ntumeni History
Ntumeni History
The dashing younger brother of King Cetshwayo, Prince Dabulamanzi, lived at Ntumeni during the time of Anglo-Zulu War and was to become one of the favourites of the British journalists covering the war due to his prominent role in most of the major battles but also because of his fondness for the colourful lifestyle of a Victorian gentleman - even making the cover of The Illustrated London News in April 1879. He was often photographed riding his black stallion and contemporary reports are filled with references to his smoking cap, Ulster coat and meerschaum pipe ('which he smokes with zest') as well as his liking for 'any amount of rum'. |
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Prince Dabulamanzi's homestead was burnt by British soldiers after the relief of Eshowe in April 1879 in retaliation for the role he played in the battles of Isandlwana, Rorke's Drift and Gingindlovu. Five years later he was shot and killed in cold blood during a heated argument during which he was accused of stealing cattle from Boer settlers in the New Republic. |
Map
Ntumeni Map