Umdloti Mangrove
Small container log only so BYOP
This could be a wet one should you not use a canoe of some sort of floating water craft!!. Could be possible swim or make your own forest path through the forest but would not recommend.
Flora and Fauna
Flanked by the beach, but built in and surrounded by natural indigenous bush, Umdloti is home to many species of flora, fauna and birds most of which can be viewed from your doorstep.
A natural, quick-acting remedy for Blue Bottle stings is the sap of the Natal Dune Vygie which sprawls over the dunes right down to the high water line. It has thick fleshy leaves and year round purple daisy-like flowers. It often grows intertwined with the Creeping Foxglove which also flowers profusely throughout the year and the Rock Rose with reddish pink flowers.
The forest starts just above these beautiful flowering dunes with a maze of scrambling, hardy, salt tolerant flowering shrubs and creepers like the Tick Berry, Cerise Star, Dune Myrtle, Fig Leafed Morning Glory and Bush Violet which form a protective canopy for shrubs and smaller trees like the Dragon Tree, Wild Date Palm. Wild Natal Banana Palm and Coastal Silver Oak. If you can get them before the Vervet Monkeys, enjoy a feast of the delicious orange fruit of the Natal Apricot and the bright red fruit of the amaTangulu bush.
Eventually Milkwood trees, which are a protected species, break through and are plentiful. There is a really majestic grove of Wild Fig trees along the Bently trail off Bellamont Road, which in its self is lined with beautiful Flat Crown and Natal Mahogany trees. Umdloti also boasts a Mangrove swamp situated along the southern bank of the Umdloti lagoon and accessible via a footpath from North Beach. Tolkien’s myth of “walking trees” comes alive in Umdloti where one can see how Milkwood, Wild Fig and Mangrove trees have “walked” as they propagate. If this fascinates you, the Wild Fig grove is a “must visit” in this respect as also a favourite “Milkwood tree with two trunks” outside No.19, South Beach Road.
The Hawaan Forest Reserve lies immediately south of Umdloti and can be accessed on foot only, either from the beach or via a pathway from the M4 to Peace Cottage. The area is remote, much the same as it was described 100 years ago by William Campbell in his book “Light on a Dark Horse” and it should not be visited alone.
Cycads grow well in the warm subtropical climate and there is a beautiful picture of a flowering Cycad Natalensis, Quneni form, on the photographs page of the Umdloti website.
Wildlife is abundant in Umdloti
Troops of vervet monkeys, mongooses, bushbuck, duiker, chameleon, tree frogs, bull frogs, giant snails are often seen.
Bird Life
Umdloti is home to many different species of birds including a flock of crowned guinea fowl, yellow billed kites, fish eagles, storks, herons, blue cranes, luries.