Grasslands National Park

Grasslands National Park is a national park in law, not yet in the sense a traveller expects. It was gazetted on 17 October 2025 in the high Witteberg country of the Eastern Cape, on the Lesotho border between Lady Grey and Elliot, near Naude’s Nek, the country’s highest road pass at over 2,500 m. Around 10,000 hectares of private farmland are contracted in so far, against a target of 30,000. It is a SANParks and WWF South Africa project, and the whole point is that the land stays in farming hands.

Getting there

There is no gate, no entrance road and no SANParks office to drive to. The park is a patchwork of working farms and communal rangeland that have signed stewardship agreements, unfenced and still grazed by sheep and cattle. The nearest towns are Lady Grey and Elliot, and Naude’s Nek, the gravel pass that climbs over 2,500 m, runs through the district. These are high mountain roads, and winter at this altitude is cold enough to shut them. Treat a trip here as a trip to the Eastern Cape highlands, with the park as the landscape around you rather than a destination with a boom.

When to go

Not yet, if you are expecting park facilities. If you want the country itself, summer (November to March) is green and is the easiest time on the high passes, though afternoon storms are part of the deal. Winter is cold at this altitude, and the passes can close.

What to do

As of today, nothing has been announced for visitors: no trails, no hides, no camps, no activities. SANParks and WWF have talked about the area’s potential for adventure and cultural tourism and a year-round visitor economy, but the early work is conservation rather than tourism: paying landowners to keep grassland intact, clearing alien trees, restoring wetlands and running conservation grazing. The land protects grassveld that is badly under-represented in the national park system and lies inside the Eastern Cape Drakensberg Strategic Water Source Area, the catchment that feeds rivers downstream. Anyone keen on the area should base themselves in Lady Grey, Elliot or one of the other highland villages, which have their own accommodation and their own reasons to visit, and treat the park as the view.

Good to know

Because the park is made up of private and communal land, you cannot simply walk onto it; access remains at the landowners’ discretion, exactly as before the declaration. Expect this page to change as the stewardship model matures and SANParks publishes anything about public access. Until then, do not plan a holiday around the name.

Last updated 6 October 2026. Sources: Wikipedia, Getaway Magazine, Farmer's Weekly, The Citizen, House and Garden South Africa, Nature Commitments.