Despite rich soil, abundant water and breathtaking scenery, its high altitude, climatic extremes and heavy snowfalls saw pioneer farmers dismiss this region until the very last. The original San hunter- gatherers spent summers here but followed animal migrations to the coast before winter's onset.
Himeville was named after Sir Alfred Hime, a road engineer elected Prime Minister of Natal in 1889, while Underberg describes that town's location beneath the mountains. The five-kilometre buffer between the two settlements relates to a certain animosity now fully consigned to history. Proof that all hatchets were well and truly buried came in 1970 when the Garden Club planted a roadside row of oak trees to symbolise the new-found unity between the two towns.
Locals have also come to terms with the alternative lifestyle-types who arrive in their thousands every year for the increasingly-popular Splashy Fen Music Festival!
The southern Drakensberg presents more fly-fishing opportunities than anywhere else in the country, with the Underberg-Himeville Trout Fishing Club holding rights to more than 160km of river plus 60 dams with a surface area exceeding 400 hectares. The district further boasts three golf courses and numerous rivers for swimming, rafting, canoeing and tubing. Horse trails and polo fields add a further dimension to the available fun and excitement.
Himeville Museum was built in 1900 as the last of Natal's loop-holed forts before housing prisoners until 1972. An open-air exhibition of settler and agricultural history is surrounded by display rooms housing military, African traditional and even trout- fishing memorabilia. Further, the museum is home to a valued collection of San artefacts and an insightful interpretation of the life and times of these ancient ones is to be found there.
Accommodation in all categories is available in Underberg and Himeville. For further information contact: