The ladies and A went for a run around the camp in the morning before we left and B & I watched the rugby. I probably haven’t done Hilltop Camp and accommodation full justice in that the facilities were very nice. As you can from the fact that we managed to watch rugby, the house we were staying in had satellite TV even. It also came with a chef (which we didn’t use) and had it’s own WiFi even. Given how everyone had told us that the accommodation wasn’t great, I would say that it was in fact very good.
However, if you want to see animals (and not birds) then I would not rush to Hlulhuwe iMfolozi park. The animals are few and far between. We finally saw elephant on the last day (lying down sleeping it seems) and of the more impressive animals we only saw the 1 wild dog and 4 rhino in total. What you will see a lot of is nyala. They were everywhere. In the Kruger National Park you see impala but in Hlulhuwe, nyala is the impala of the park (though you do get impala too they are far less than nyala).
The drive we needed to do was very short (just under 2 hours) and so we decided that when we exit Hlulhuwe that we would go directly east into some of the St Lucia area and do some birding on the water before heading to Mkhuze. The one annoying thing was the quantity of traffic coming to the park and especially game vehicles (who like the Kruger believe they own the road and the park). At the gate before we exited the park we saw a number of new birds for the trip and lifers for everyone.
As we were standing there birding, we could hear a veld fire and then we could feel it and then we could see it coming right up to the gate. We thought it would be a good time to get into our cars and get out of there. The only issue was that to exit the park we had to drive through where the fire was burning. We were the last of the 3 cars and the flames were right up against the side of the road and H was shouting at me that it was going to burn the paint off the car. I was too busy trying to see where to go as the smoke was so thick I could only see directly in front of me and just hoped there wasn’t an oncoming car or that A (who was in front of me) didn’t stop because I would never have been able to see either until it was too late. Fortunately (as you can tell from me typing this blog) we did get through safely and we headed for False Bay in St Lucia.
Once out it only took us about 30 minutes to get to the gate of a portion of iSimangaliso Wetland Park and after debating whether we wanted to pay the R149 gate entry fee per car, we decided why not and went in. What I good call that turned out to be as the birding over St Lucia lake was fantastic. The road was only just over 6 kms long but runs along the side of the lake the whole time and there are 2 picnic spots as well. We stopped at the first one and after some quick scanning we noticed a number of birds on the water. We couldn’t easily see them until H reminded me that I had my scope with me and then once that was out and installed we tracked down some really good birds with again lifers for everyone.
By this point it was 1pm already and so we headed to Mkhuze Game Park where we are spending the next 2 days. The drive once off the N2 is on dirt road which were in reasonable condition except when you passed through a village when it became much worse because it was partly tarred. After the gate check in we headed to the camp (Mantuma) and arrived just before 3pm. It was just as well we arrived then because in the midst of checking in they told us that they actually close at 3pm on Saturdays! That might have been slightly difficult if they were closed because we wouldn’t have been able to buy wood. We would still have been able to get into our units because they have a board with the allocations and they leave the keys in the unit door.
We did a camp walk late afternoon and realised that there are actually no fences and you could just walk down the road and out of the camp if you wanted to. There is also no one going to stop you. We were doing the walk when a ranger pulled up and asked what we were looking for. Very friendly and chatty and so we asked him about the restrictions and he said there are none and yes the camp was unfenced and that is the way they like it. He said yesterday a herd of elephants came through the camp at night. He also suggested that sundowners at one of the hides was a good thing to do and we replied and said ‘but aren’t you meant to not drive past 6pm?’ and he replied with a smirk and said ‘you’re not meant to but that doesn’t mean you can’t’! It seems they are pretty flexible and not overly concerned if you’re a few minutes late. There are no gates and no one is actually around even (from what we could tell).
We had a braai for dinner (as usual). Given the milestones (H passed 450 lifers and O passed 200 lifers), A had agreed to open his red wine magnum he brought along. A very nice bottle and worthy of a rise in the blog rankings for opening that. What was also surprising was that when A went inside to cut up some of the braai for dinner, O jumped up to watch her sausage on the braai. You tongmanship did even include the odd clicking of the tongs to try and impress us. A wasn’t overly impressed when he came back outside and was very keen to become the tongmaster again.
Until late (or maybe tomorrow depending on how tired I am and whether the signal is good enough to post a blog) …
P, H, A (for wine), B (for his bird imitation in front of S who was in the ‘bird hide’ – see photo below), O (feel bad for her as she has hurt her back after her run yesterday … reminding me again why running is dangerous and shouldn’t be done) & S.
