There are literally thousands of paintings in caves and overhangs in the Drakensberg where you can see the wonderful artistic legacies left to us by the Bushman / San people. Their locations are secret. Well maybe not secret. But not publicized. For obvious reasons. The paintings are national treasures and are protected by law but as you can imagine, enforcing the law is easier said than done. And consequently, if you get your hiking boots on you will be richly rewarded. But please don't touch - they're precious.

There are other options though. KZN Wildlife run guided tours to the three most important painting sites. They are:

• Game Pass Shelter in the Kamberg;
• Main Caves at Giant's Castle; and
• Battle Cave at Injasuti.

Game Pass Shelter, Kamberg

This site inspired a lot of the ground-breaking work done by South African academics (Lewis-Williams & Dowson) in unlocking the mysteries or "decoding the past". There's a multimedia centre at the bottom where they show you a 20-minute video based on their work. Very useful. It makes the paintings, when you get up to Game Pass Shelter, that much more accessible.

Tours leave daily at 8 a.m., 11 a.m. and 2 p.m. It's about a 3-hour round trip up to Game Pass Shelter and back down to the bottom. The scenery is stunning. The path follows a river and has you criss-crossing behind waterfalls. The last bit is very steep though and unless you're one of these triathlon types, you're going to be panting when you get to the top.

But it's worth it. The friezes are fabulous. They're big and colourful. And they'll stab anybody in the eye.

Main Caves, Giant's Castle

Now anthropologists and the like may argue that this is the most important site in the Drakensberg. Yes, there are six or seven hundred paintings in the caves - an extraordinary density. But they're small, monochromatic and intensely symbolic. The uninitiated are usually unimpressed. They do have a display (using Madame Tussaud-type models) which shows what a Bushman cave would have looked like. That's quite interesting.

Tours leave every hour on the hour. It's a twenty-minute walk from the Giant's Castle rest camp to the caves. Nice walk but nowhere near as demanding as the one up to Game Pass Shelter.

Battle Cave, Injasuti

This one's interesting because the paintings are stylistically different e.g. this is the only known site where there's a painting of a snake, a chameleon and a baboon. Different tribe? Different clan? Who knows?

Anyway what I can tell you is that this one is a mission to get to. Tours need to be booked in advance and leave at 8 a.m. And it's a five to seven hour hike up to Battle Cave and back. And that doesn't leave you much time for looking around the cave and studying the paintings.

© Halls Country House | Drakensberg Accommodation