I was driving into town down McKenzie street last night when a hippo crossed the road. It was making its way from the grassed pavement outside the fish restaurant to the self-catering cabanas – he was making for the grass surrounding the palm tree. The number of spectating tourists in the adjacent parking-lot grew, most shooting with cell-phone cameras, while locals on the deck of a restaurant next-door continued chatting over their meals. A second hippo followed suit, lumbering across the road to the other side of the tree. For many years, my sketchy yet over-riding memory of the village of St Lucia, gateway to the Lake St Lucia estuary and a Wetland Park famed for hippos and crocodiles, has been one of fishing, ski-boats, dodgy 70s architecture and beer. But this holiday mecca has changed.Driven by developments in the beautiful countryside around it, it is a tale that involves elephants, lions, whales, wetlands and wooly-necked storks, prehistoric fish, ancient peoples and more recent arrivals from Europe. It’s the story of iSimangaliso Wetland Park, the latest thoroughly compelling addition to the South African wildlife tourism landscape. It was this combination of beauty and uniqueness that resulted in the Park being declared the country’s first World Heritage Site in 1999. In the demanding tick-box language of the United Nations, such recognition is supreme. Now for some relevant trivia: critical to being awarded such an accolade is what is known as Outstanding Universal Value (OUV). This comprises Biological Diversity, Ecosystems (and their functioning) and Superlative Natural Beauty. Outside the bureaucratic corridors of the UN, in the tourism world, this is big cheese. And iSimangaliso has OUV by the spade-load. ‘iSimangaliso’ replaced ‘Greater St Lucia’ as the name of the Wetland Park in 2007. And to paraphrase Park CEO Andrew Zaloumis, it makes sense – St Lucia in the Caribbean also boasts a World HeritageSite. Zaloumis is my guide through the park, and he’s big on branding. Having spent much of his youth here, guided by his environmentalist father, he clearly knows and loves this landscape. A political activist in his youth and previous project manager of a spatial development initiative linking Maputo to South African business hubs, he’s been driving the creation of this park for the past decade – and every year he is seeing milestones reached. In the roughly 500km we drive through and around the 332 000 hectare park, the signage, facilities and boardwalks are brand-new and everywhere. It’s a consistent destination reminder. Facilities, like braai and camping sites and birding hides have been created with a contemporary conservation ethos in mind. Everything is explained. And when confusion reigns around existing place names, Ziloumis has taken into consideration the fact that two profound cultures call iSimangaliso home – the Zulu in the south and Tonga to the north. Whereas it was once a place dismissed or ignored by tourism authorities, the Zulu legend of the conical hills (around lake Bangazi) becomes an item of interest. Culture, respect and tolerance are part of the fabric of this park. No surprise then that it was opened by Nelson Mandela, South Africa’s first democratically elected president, who also championed its World Heritage site application: “iSimangaliso must be the only place on the globe where the world’s oldest land mammal (the rhinoceros) and the world’s biggest terrestrial mammal (the elephant) share an ecosystem with the world’s oldest fish (the coelacanth) and the world’s biggest marine mammal (the whale).” Mandela saw the benefits of conservation and tourism for society as a whole. My most recent iSimangaliso experience started just outside St Lucia village in the Park’s Eastern Shores section. Populated with non-threatening plains game, the first fenced section is open to walkers mountain-bikers and horse-back riders. Once through the heavy-duty big game fence, it’s pretty much game-on for game-viewing. This is where rhino and buffalo could pop up any minute. Although park rangers say the resident herds of elephant have crossed Lake St Lucia to the Western Shores. Key attractions for me are the bird hides positioned alongside the numerous pans that sit alongside the lake and throughout the Park. Elephant, hippo, rhino, zebra, aquatic birds, everything can be seen here. Or nothing, that’s just the way of the bush. Here the rock-pools are marine treasures of note, taking families back to days when hours would be spent exploring urchins and starfish.From Cape Vidal we drive north for 70kms on the beach, to the diving hub of Sodwana Bay. Normally not allowed, Zaloumis feels the need to do an unannounced beach patrol, at the same time showing off the pristine beach. Out there in the warm Indian ocean water is whale and dolphin world.A turning above and over the grassland dunes to the west introduces Mission Rocks, host to Indian ocean waves pounding its rocky shore, and the Mziki picnic site. A boardwalk connects both. The lush and hilly uMkhuze section forms the western boundary of iSimangaliso, and on the 60km drive inland through rural Zululand, Zaloumis points out bridges that have been repaired and roads that have been built – all through SMMEs (small and medium enterprises).Tarred roads are crucial in these parts – allow for access to clinics and schools. And when local, rural communities have access to such basic services – thanks to a wildlife / tourism project – the poaching inevitably decreases.The positive message of the tourism projects associated with iSimangaliso continues in the bright red and yellow bicycles also seen on the roads. As we witnessed on the beach, locals who had grown 70 indigenous trees were given bikes donated by corporate sponsors. It’s just one effort at complementing alien tree removal. uMkhuze has long been recognized as one of South Africa’s top two birding spots. When my father dragged my unwilling childhood self and the family here in the late 1970s, all I remember was a staff member beating a snake found under the entrance mat to our chalet.One of the brand-new bird-hides we visit on the edge of Nsumu Pan wouldn’t look out of place in an architectural journal. Inside is a Nordic couple in safari gear. Surrounded by lenses and a couple of bird guides, with fever trees, reeds and mountain framing the pan, they want to share the osprey they have captured in their lens. Zaloumis looks chuffed.I’m impressed by the main camp. This is where I must’ve stayed as a child. With it’s thatched family chalets and children’s laughter emanating from the swimming pool, I want to return with my two little ones.Being one of the guardian reserves of our precious black rhinos, uMkhuze is an integral part of the Park. As is the pride of lion recently re-introduced to the Reserve (in a boma, ‘acclimatising’, at time of writing).The plentiful impala, zebra and giraffe – the latter having developed the unusual habit of lying down – will have received a nasty surprise by the time you read this.With the opening of the 25 000 hectare Western Shores section of the Park, and this revamped uMkhuze, the final pieces in the iSimangaliso resurrection puzzle are falling into place. Zaloumis seems to have directed the next big thing in South African wildlife tourism.

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