A shape emerges from the dark: rotund, slow moving, somewhat prehistoric. A hippo lifts its head under the amber wash of a streetlight and stares at our family in a safari vehicle parked a careful distance away.

In South Africa’s St Lucia, this is not an extraordinary sight. It is Tuesday night. And for families visiting this small coastal town on the edge of the wild, this is often their first encounter with Africa’s wildlife, not deep in a reserve, but metres from a pavement.

Where is St Lucia?

St Lucia sits at the gateway to South Africa’s iSimangaliso Wetland Park just a couple hours’ drive north from Durban in the KwaZulu Natal province. iSimangaliso itself is a vast mosaic of estuary, coastal forest, wetlands and ocean that has earned global conservation status and stretches all the way up to the border of Mozambique. A

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