BBC Natural World - Africa's Dragon Mountains (2010)

An intimate portrait of the spectacular Drakensberg - 'dragon mountains' - of South Africa, following giant antelope, bone-cracking vultures and raucous baboons as they struggle to survive in a land of extremes.

Serval cats and jackals patrol the slopes watching for any weakness and bearded vultures fly overhead. Eland antelope face constant challenges straight from birth and climb high to find food but avoid wildfires, freezing rain and starvation on the way. Despite these battles, this mountain kingdom offers some respite in summer and allows life to cling on in Africa's stunning Dragon Mountains.

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Snippet from Wikipedia: Drakensberg

The Drakensberg (Zulu: uKhahlamba, Sotho: Maloti, Afrikaans: Drakensberge) is the eastern portion of the Great Escarpment, which encloses the central Southern African plateau. The Great Escarpment reaches its greatest elevation – 2,000 to 3,482 metres (6,562 to 11,424 feet) within the border region of South Africa and Lesotho.

The Drakensberg escarpment stretches for more than 1,000 kilometres (600 miles) from the Eastern Cape Province in the South, then successively forms, in order from south to north, the border between Lesotho and the Eastern Cape and the border between Lesotho and KwaZulu-Natal Province. Thereafter it forms the border between KwaZulu-Natal and the Free State, and next as the border between KwaZulu-Natal and Mpumalanga Province. The escarpment winds north from there, through Mpumalanga, where it includes features such as the Blyde River Canyon, Three Rondavels, and God's Window. It then extends farther north to Hoedspruit in southeastern Limpopo where it is known as 'Klein Drakensberg' by the Afrikaner. From Hoedspruit it extends west to Tzaneen, also in Limpopo Province, where it is known as the Wolkberg Mountains and Iron Crown Mountain. At 2,200 m (7,200 ft) above sea level, the Wolkberg is the highest elevation in Limpopo. The escarpment extends west again and at Mokopane it is known as the Strydpoort Mountains.

Etymology

The Afrikaans name Drakensberge comes from the name the earliest Dutch settlers gave to the escarpment, namely Drakensbergen, or Dragons' Mountains.

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