Mac Nicol's Caravan Park

Mac Nicol's is a caravan park ninety metres from Bazley Beach, with camping sites under shade and eight log cabins facing the Ifafa Lagoon. The family has run it since 1971, and the place works the way caravaners would want: staff put up your tent if you ask, the ablution blocks are clean, and each site has electricity. The lagoon is good for canoeing; the beach stretches for miles.

Two swimming pools wait at the centre of the park — one heated for winter — and a shop stocks what you might have forgotten. In season, there are takeaway meals and entertainment; out of season, the kitchen does pancakes and braai nights. Morning tea and scones happen daily, a tradition the owners kept from the beginning.

The log cabins sleep four, with kitchens, braai areas, and compact DSTV. They are serviced each morning between half past nine and eleven. No pets are allowed in the cabins, but the park takes tents and caravans without that rule.

The Bazley Trails start nearby, and the hall and TV room give children space when the beach is not enough. The place is less than a hundred kilometres from Durban, close enough for a weekend but far enough that the air smells of salt, not city.