Ladysmith is located 230 Kliometers north-west from Durban and 365 kilometers south of Johannesburg. The town is found next to the banks of Klip River (Stone river) and on the foothills of the well-known Drakensberg mountains just 26km from the Van Reenen pass. Some Boer farmers, under the command of Andries Spies, bought the land in 1847 from King Mpande, a Zulu king, and briefly settled the before the British defeated them in the same year. On June 1850 the British changed the name of the Republic of Klip River (given by the Boers) to Ladysmith after Juana Maria de los Dolores de Leon Smith also known as "Lady Smith", the Spanish wife of Sir Harry Smith, who was then the Governor of the Cape Colony. Sir Harry Smith was the British general governor of Cape Colony and high commissioner in South Africa from 1847 to 1852. The town has a subtropical climate with warm summers and dry winters.