Near Mkuze Game Reserve is the Ghost Mountain. "It’s a great and strange mountain. It is haunted also and named the Ghost Mountain," wrote Rider Haggard in his novel, Nada the Lily.
Haggard had done a spell of duty at the Ubombo Court House as a member of the staff of Sir Theophilus Shepstone, when Zululand was a British Protectorate. Memories of a violent warring past can be relived at the site of the Battle of Ghost Mountain where Dinuzulu (son of King Cetshwayo) defeated Zibhebhu (Chief of the powerful Mandlakazi clan).
From the small trading centre and railway station of Mkuze there is a beautiful 10-kilometre drive through the Lebombo Mountains to the entrance of the Mkuzi Game Reserve. The road makes its way through a pass filled with tall forest trees. The game reserve itself is a superb natural parkland, 25 000 hectares in extent, set in an even larger area of trees covering the coastal plain of Tongaland. The reserve is the home of a large population of impala, black rhinoceros, blue wildebeest, nyala, kudu, reedbuck, red and grey duiker, zebra, steenbuck, suni, bush pig, warthog, black-backed and side- striped jackal, and leopard. The Mkuze River and the Nsumu Pan contain many crocodiles, and there is a wealth of waterfowl. Bird life includes the white backed vulture, crested guinea fowl, Natal francolin, stilt, green-spotted wood dove, black cuckoo, white- fronted bee-eater and greater honey guide. The reserve has two game viewing hides at Bube and Msinga pans. There are wilderness trails and a camping hut with cooks and helpers. Visitors must bring their own food. At the entrance is a caravan park. Mkuzi is a small gem of a reserve, and botanists find the area rewarding. It was proclaimed a game reserve in 1912.
