The old mines of Ngwenya, inactive since 2017, claim to be the oldest mine in the world. This is because the San people used to come here to scrape iron off the rocks for those rock paintings you may have seen in other areas (including Drakensberg), as well as sunscreen would you believe it. The guide used it for his hand and says he uses is every time he comes here on a tour.

Arriving at 08:00 when they open the gate (actually I opened it but the guy came down the road a few minutes later anyway), I paid the entrance fee of 30 Rand (equals to 30 emalangeni but I didn't have any) and we drove up to the visitor center with my car. The ticket price includes a tour guide which is really great. The park also has game so you could technically pay just park entrance fee and see everything by yourself but it wouldn't be very insightful. As usually there are two staff on hand it isn't a problem if he leaves but at the moment he is alone and he actually unmanned the booth and any tourists arriving after me would have to wait for 90 minutes. I thus strongly suggest to be there at 08:00 as well. The tour is quite long because it involves some light hiking to the Lion Cavern. The visitor center unfortunately burnt down in September last year. The first stop is in front of it nethertheless to view the old Ngwenya mining pit. I had a very foggy day and the pictures online are a thousand times better than what I shot. Anyway this isn't special because this was used for modern iron mining. The main point of interest is the Lion Cavern which is one of four caverns still in existence. The other 3 were destroyed by recent mining, shocking as it is. The entire area is full off rusty iron and I can understand how it is easy and valuable to take the entire rock outcrop.

There was supposed to be mining activity until 2019 by an Indian company but it stopped a couple of years earlier due to lack of returns. This is one of the reasons though, that I find the site can't be considered as a WHS. A mine would have to be completely shut down and not have mining equipment laying about. It wouldn't be hard to clean up and eliminate future contracts but the site isn't ready for that yet. Perhaps only the Lion Cavern is, but I find the evidence is lacking that this iron is EXACTLY the ones used for rock art. If so then maybe.