Greytown

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General Information

Greytown is situated on the Mvoti River, which was founded in 1854 and named after Sir George Grey, Governor of the Cape at that time. Voortrekkers laid out this picturesque country town in the 1850s...using the neat grid system first employed at Pietermaritzburg. Greytown initially enjoyed a fair amount of importance, playing ‘little elephant’ toPietermaritzburg’s ‘place of the elephant’. With the relocation of the King Shaka airport, Greytown has become the gateway to the interior of KwaZulu-Natal.

The route will take you through The Valley of a Thousand Hills, fertile sugar farms, into the rolling hills of timberland around Greytown and the through the magnificent scenery of The Tugela Basin, South Africa's largest river - and the distance is the same as through the dreadful Durban traffic and trucks on the N3.

Many political analysts believe that the modern Liberation Struggle for a democratic South Africa began in the Greytown district almost a century ago with the Bambatha Rebellion. Named after a local chief and instigator, this 1906 uprising against white authority was the culmination of political and economic grievances. Ironically, the Greytown district was also the birthplace of Boer leader and first Prime Minister of the Union of South Africa - General Louis Botha - who held office.