Our time in game parks came to an end today. As we had a 4-hour drive to our accommodation on the beach (and nearer the airport), we decided to skip the morning drive and rather have a sleep in (at least for as long as Z allowed) and then a leisurely breakfast, walk around the camp, pack up and head out. We were on the road just after 9am and as we only had 12 kms to exit Mkuze, we did a slow drive and stopped at a bird hide on the way out. It was again quite a nice hide overlooking a small dam and we manage to add another few birds to the trip list. That is now up to 120 birds for me. I have added 5 lifers for the trip – my expectation was 0 so I am infinitely better than expected right now!

Once exiting the park you have to navigate around 20 kms of dirt road and about 2 kms of severely pot-holed tar road before getting back onto the main N2 which goes North/South all the way down to Cape Town. It was about 280 kms south to the turn off for Salt Rock where we are staying for next 2 nights. The problem is that it treacherous driving. On the way up we had one guy overtaking a truck and another guy overtaking him in the yellow lines. Today we had oncoming traffic overtaking trucks in a no-passing zone that forced me into the yellow line. Having driven across a lot of South Africa, I can honestly say that this stretch of road feels like the most hazardous to drive. It doesn’t help that the road is full of trucks with sugar cane, timber or iron ore. Limited passing opportunities and slow driving trucks are never a good combination.

The good news is that we made it safely to our accommodation in Salt Rock. The house is right on the beach. Seriously when I say right on the beach I mean it – there is a gate onto the beach from the pool area. They (SKZH) went down to the beach before dinner. It has 8 bedrooms (we are only using ½ of the house), 4 lounge areas down stairs and that excludes the two outside lounge areas. The most well appointed kitchen I have ever seen with every kind of knife, pot, pan & utensil you could ever need.

There is nothing quite like the constant sound of the waves to relax you. I immediately said to H, I am not going to do anything tomorrow but just sit here and enjoy the view and sound. It also felt appropriate to have seafood for dinner tonight and having managed to secure some butterflied prawns, we enjoyed those with sweet potato wedges, cauliflower and a green salad. Of course washed down with a lovely chardonnay.

Until tomorrow …

P, H, S (he did most of the supper), K & Z (she was again a star in the car trip)