The Carte Collection: 85 Years of Family Hospitality in the Drakensberg

Eighty-five years after Bill and Ruth Carte arrived in the Northern Drakensberg, their five granddaughters run three distinct mountain businesses, carrying a family legacy of hospitality, conservation and community into its fourth generation.

Tucked into a quiet valley beside the Amphitheatre, in the Northern Drakensberg, lies one of South Africa’s longest-running family hospitality stories.

The Carte Collection is made up of three distinct businesses – The Cavern Drakensberg Resort & Spa, Sungubala Eco Camp and Montusi Mountain Lodge – each owned and managed by the five granddaughters of Bill and Ruth Carte, who settled here in 1941.

How the Carte Family’s Drakensberg Legacy Began

The couple arrived to manage a cattle ranch, but the steep slopes and tough grassland were poorly suited to farming. Ruth saw another possibility. With a loan from an uncle, they opened a modest guest farm of thatched rondavels for just twelve guests, with no electricity and bath water heated over open fires.

Bill quarried sandstone from the nearby cliffs to build the Main Lounge, which still anchors The Cavern today. The words he wrote that first year remain the family’s touchstone: to create beauty, to make the land more fertile, to make a living and to leave the world better than they found it.

Growing the Resort of Many Happy Returns

When Bill died in 1954, Ruth chose to stay, raising four children while growing the guest farm into a resort for 120 guests by the 1960s. She also made a decision that would define the family’s relationship with the land, ending a grazing lease to protect the grasslands despite the lost income, and beginning the long work of clearing invasive alien plants.

Her sons, Peter and Anthony, carried the resort through the 1970s and 1980s, and loyal guests gave it the name it still carries: the Resort of Many Happy Returns.

Three Unique Mountain Retreats in the Northern Drakensberg

Today the five granddaughters’ three businesses offer three very different ways to experience the mountains. The Cavern is vibrant, fully catered heart of the valley, beloved by families and multi-generational groups, with daily guided hikes, a spa and suites overlooking an ancient fern forest.

Sungubala Eco Camp, on a secluded farm above the Sungubala Valley, is a self-catering retreat for hikers, mountain bikers and anyone who likes to end the day around a campfire beneath a sky full of stars. Montusi Mountain Lodge offers a more refined escape, with fine dining, generous suites, sunset horse rides and walks to Bushman Cave, Waterfall Cave and the summit of Montusi Mountain.

Protecting the Northern Drakensberg’s Natural Heritage

What binds the three is a shared sense of custodianship. More than eight decades of alien clearing helped the valley become part of the 6,500-hectare Northern Drakensberg Nature Reserve, of which all three properties are founding members.

The reserve forms a conservation corridor between Royal Natal National Park and the Sterkfontein Reserve in the Free State, protecting wildlife, water catchments and cultural heritage in the shadow of the Tugela Falls, the world’s highest waterfall.

Supporting Education in Local Communities

The family’s commitment reaches well beyond its boundary fences. Since 2006, the Royal Drakensberg Education Trust has focused the collection’s community work on early childhood education, nurturing young children, training teachers and supporting parents in the rural villages nearby, so that the next generation starts school with stronger foundations.

A Family Legacy That Continues to Grow

For visitors, the result is a stay that feels both timeless and purposeful. Children who once explored these forests and streams now return with families of their own, proof that, eighty-five years on, the Carte family’s vision is still taking root.

www.carte-collection.co.za

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