Battlefields of South Africa - 2 Day Tour. Departing TUESDAYS, THURSDAYS and SATURDAYS (SCDF) 

TOUR NAME : 2 Day Battlefields of KwaZulu Natal Tour.
CODE : SCDF.
MEALS INCLUDED : Breakfasts & Dinners.
DEPARTURE : Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays at 08:00.
DURATION : 2 Days.
ROUTING : Durban - Pietermaritzburg - Spioenkop - Ladysmith - Dundee - Talana - Isandlwana - Rorke's Drift - Ondini - Durban.
SPECIAL NOTES : Bring sun block and an insect repellant along.
MEDICAL REQUIREMENTS : None.
DRESS REQUIREMENTS : Comfortable casual and smart casual for the evenings, warm windbreakers/jackets for the evenings in our winter (May - September).

DAY 1 - Durban - Spioenkop - Ladysmith - Dundee.
We travel westwards to Pietermaritzburg to visit the Church of the Vow and then onwards to the Spioenkop hill where the Battle of Spioenkop took place. Standing on the spot, the terrible incident unfolds in front of you again. At Ladysmith we visit the war museum for an insight into the siege of Ladysmith and stories of suffering and heroism. Our overnight stop is outside Dundee after we visited the Talana war museum and Battlefield.

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DAY 2 - Rorke's Drift - Isandlwana - Ondini - Durban.
This morning we cover the famous and awe inspiring battlefields of Rorke's Drift and Isandlwana. Our last stop is at Chetswayo's Kraal, Ondini, where the British army revenged the battle of Isandlwana. We return to Durban via Melmoth and Eshowe and arrive in the evening. The Battle of Isandlwana on 22 January 1879 was the first major encounter in the Anglo-Zulu War between the British Empire and the Zulu Kingdom. Eleven days after the British commenced their invasion of Zululand in South Africa, a Zulu force of some 20,000 warriors attacked a portion of the British main column consisting of about 1,800 British, colonial and native troops and perhaps 400 civilians. Despite a vast disadvantage in weapons technology, the numerically superior Zulus ultimately overwhelmed the poorly led and badly deployed British, killing over 1,300 troops, including all those out on the forward firing line. The Zulu army suffered around a thousand killed.

The battle was a crushing victory for the Zulus and caused the defeat of the first British invasion of Zululand. The British army had suffered its worst defeat against a technologically inferior indigenous force. However, Isandlwana resulted in the British taking a much more aggressive approach in the Anglo-Zulu War, leading to a heavily reinforced second invasion and the destruction of King Cetshwayo's hopes of a negotiated peace.