Believe it or not it's pronounced shle-shlue-wee
Trip Start
Jul 28, 2009
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3
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Trip End
Jul 28, 2010
Hluhluwe Game Reserve, KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa
Thursday, August 20, 2009
the barbie on our first evening than we were visited by a scarily large hyena taking a great interest in what’s cooking! Here’s a new challenge for the BBC Masterchefs – never mind the high pressure professional kitchen, how about trying to cook in the dark, in the open bush, whilst keeping an eagle eye out for the strongest jaws in the animal kingdom, recently sighted on a hyena near your tent?!! It was 1-0 to us though as the heat of the fire saw off the intruder and we retained rights over our dinner!
A different park brings a different range of game, and we’ve enjoyed the diversity of seeing different parts of the country. This park is renowned for its rhino, and though they were a
little slow in performing for us we ended up seeing plenty – nine white rhino on our most prolific drive, and several babies – not bad for a species that was nearly extinct 50 years ago.
Black rhino are still highly endangered and though we saw evidence of their presence, in prints and droppings, an actual sighting remained elusive to us. A big coup in this park was a rare sighting of wild dogs, also on the endangered list, and top of Rachel’s wish list for a long time – it was great fun to watch the eight or so of them tearing around, running up and down the bank of the river opposite us. We also came across a huge herd of elephants, not present in the
Kalahari so our first this trip – a few small babies among them making for fascinating viewing as they chomped their way through the undergrowth and gradually crossed the road. We had a bit of a hairy moment when they moved closer and one of the larger ones took offence at our presence, staring us down, flapping ears and gesturing with tusks in the middle of the road right in front of the car! Our hearts were beating rather rapidly as we eased backwards to give them more room and they continued their crossing at peace.
On the way back we made what with hindsight was a less than perfect decision – the fuel light came on, but we figured we could just about make it back to camp, where we could refuel. Which we did, only to find that they’d had no fuel there for three days! Admittedly there did turn out to be a tiny notice stuck to the pump that you could just about read if you were close enough to, say, fuel your car. Anyway, after much unhelpful discussion with the staff there, and careful mpg calculations, Mike decided to chance it and set off towards the nearest fuel point, stopping for man nor beast (tough call if he’d seen a leopard), free wheeling down the hills, and indeed making it without breaking down surrounded by wild beasts in the middle of a game park! The steak and beers that night were certainly well earned.
To add to the safari experience we also embarked on a three day walking trail from this camp. With 5 other trekkers and two rangers we trekked through the bush, and after a few hours, two
river crossings and one close up rhino we reached Mphafa camp, our home for the next 2 nights. The camp consisted of dome tents set up in a small clearing with a fire for a living room, awning for a dining room, a bucket for a shower and a shovel for a toilet. On our bush walks we encountered quite a few animals though they generally didn’t hang around for long after they
spotted us! We saw giraffe, rhino, elephant, impala, nyala, warthog, kudu and buffalo. Round the fire later we heard lion and hyena very close indeed, and while they didn’t visit us in camp we spotted both on our walk back out of the bush the next morning.
Later that day a very rough, painfully untarmaced road delivered us eventually to Ithala nature reserve and our very pleasant chalet at Ntshondwe camp. It’s a beautiful park, very hilly with far
reaching views stretching out for miles all around, the evening light bringing out the soft warm colours of the hillsides. It’s not a terribly game rich park, but for some reason we had good sightings on both our way in and out – the first thing we saw was three white rhino (yes, we were really on a roll) and on the way out met a herd of at least 20 of the park’s elusive and
wary elephant population. Q: What’s black and white and red all over? A: A zebra in Ithala! The animals here often have a red tinge due to the very red ground in parts of the park, the warthogs in particular are a most peculiar shade after all that wallowing in the red mud!
Our final night in this park was spent at Thalu lodge, a completely private and remote outpost consisting of us alone, accessed only after several km of rough dirt/stone road that made us long to be back in our 4x4 vehicle! We loved the rustic wooden chalet with no electricity, looking out over a cliff-fringed river that we would have swum in were it a little warmer / we were a little
braver! As darkness fell we had to light the gas lamps and the smell of the gas and smouldering matches reminded me very fondly of family caravan holidays back at Burrowhayes Farm. We didn’t have to trek across the campsite in our wellies to fetch the water here though, and there was no afternoon tea garden round the corner!
From here the animal magic is set to continue as we head to Kruger park, where will we explore further afield than we’ve ventured before – it’s the size of Wales so there’s quite a bit of land to get around! We’ll be there for the next two weeks, including another 4 days trekking in the bush, so you’ll have to wait til we return from the wild for the next installment!
Comments
Great stuff
Wonderful info and pics, guys - keep it coming!
I'm not so keen on the petrol story, though; glad it worked out okay!
I can't believe you saw so many white rhinos; that is very cool.
Sarah xxxx