Birders Paradise
The friendly little town of Wakkerstroom, surrounded by vast wetlands that attract huge numbers of birds, is an international birding mecca set in a beautiful valley in southern Mpumalanga.
Summer is normally mild and very wet, spreading emerald green blankets around the village after the first rains, while winter announces plummeting temperatures, frost and sometimes snow. The grasslands around Wakkerstroom were declared an Important Bird and Biodiversity Area.
Wakkerstroom is another one of those unexpected towns one is fortunate to find in South Africa’s most far-flung regions. There seems to be some kind of natural magic in the air there, with lovely weeping willows and glorious Christmas roses, all set within the splendid tranquillity of a tiny dorp.
Add to this an amazing and amiable bunch of locals, and a setting surrounded by an extensive wetlands system, and you can be sure you’ve got ‘country living’ at its best.
Wakkerstroom outdoor activities include fishing, hiking, walking trails, cycling and mountain biking, birding and much more.
The history of Wakkerstroom dates back to 1859, when a certain Dirk Cornelius Uys measured out the streets with a 150-yard leather thong cut...
The village of Wakkerstroom in the high-lying grassland along the Mpumalanga/KwaZulu-Natal border is arguably the finest place to see South ...