South Africa/Botswana 2019

After a painless BA  flight to Jo'burg and after buying a SIM card for the shit phone we immediately picked up our hire car and drove south of the city towards Piet Retief, our overnight stay. Easy driving through nondescript flatlands mainly, dodging the massive trucks carrying coal from the open caste coal mines ( eg the Durham Colliery); quite surreal landscapes on occasion. Piet Retief is also rather nondescript although we stayed in a pleasant airbnb in lovely gardens full of citrus trees. It’s spring so nippy in the am, though 27c by pm. Back on the road for our stay at the Ghost Mountain Inn on the fringe of the Mkuze National Park, driving through vast agricultural fields and pine plantations. All of the towns we passed through were virtually 100% black and we stuck out a bit when we stopped. Good views of Swaziland hills when the road curved around it's border. The Ghost Moutain Inn was a lovely hotel with pools, spacious grounds and a lake o...

An easy drive to our “tented room” in Fazala Lodge, in a small private reserve just outside the National Park. A bonus was the amount of game visible around the boundary fence of the lodge. The left hand giraffe had an appalling wound from a big cat attack. We had two forays into the park in the game truck, the first with a 5.30 am start, very chilly and then wet (the only rain of the trip) and then an evening drive. We were now in the Hluhluwe National Park, one of the largest in the country.  Some stunning and mixed scenery plus a variety of game. It being the start of our holiday we didn’t feel pressure to see “ everything “ all at once which made for a more relaxing experience. First rhino of the trip Buffalo Not so much when, near the exit gate as the park was about to close a elephant in musk charged the vehicles ahead of us, causing chaos on the road with some cars reversing, some turning, general chaos but hey, we were with th...

Well, it was time to be more independent and adventurous. We went off for our first shop to “Super Spar“ and started our drive through the Hluhluwe National Park for our stay at the Mpila Camp in iMfolozi, the even less pronounceable southern section of the park. We were a little nervous about the drive  through the park in our little hire car because of  the road surfaces we might find and indeed the route as we had been told that our intended route had been blocked by some local protesters who could turn violent. African hoopoe outside our cabin In the event it was a great drive through the park, not so much for the game that we saw but just for the changing scenery. When we reached the camp we had time for our “own” game drive as well. We had a cabin at the Mpila camp and enjoyed our first home cooked meal. It was our first experience of staying overnight  in unfenced (and unlocked!) accommodation  where you had to be very careful about leaving...

Our next stop was St Lucia, a small resort town on the lagoon and wetland area of the National Park. Our apartment was pleasant enough, overlooking the river and with its “own“ resident hippo that would come up from the river each night to enjoy the lawn frontage. As the hippo  kills more people in Africa then any other animal there were obvious precautions to be taken but it was a bit surreal, especially when Nic, going out the front door of the apartment at night, almost fell over the said hippo which had moved on to the front lawn! The game drives  here were very different, one on the water in the lagoon, the better one in the wetlands and along the coast with a stunning beach line. We also saw flamingoes and a number of other birds along a boardwalk and then by the sea where a number of men were fishing. Striped kingfisher Waterbuck (with white circle on rump) Male nyala Female nyala Banded mongoose, dozens disconcertingly around the...

We were curious to spend time in a city with a marked degree of Indian influence and “seaside “town at that. We stayed in a lovely period building called St Anne's Guest House on a hill overlooking the harbour and explored the beachfront and the affluent beach suburb of Ushmalanga. It was fascinating to see the diverse sections of society at play on a Sunday afternoon as we walked the entire length of the promenade, but there wasn't much else in Durban to detain us, though we did manage to find some good restaurants! The World Cup stadium