On Safari!
Am feeling relaxed after a fantastic few days in near St Lucia in North KZN. It’s a great destination, taking only a few hours to get there from here up a very straight coastal motorway. It was brilliant to go somewhere a bit further away this time.
St Lucia Wetlands is a world heritage site boasting great sandy beaches, lots of wildlife, lakes and an estuary. It’s very picturesque. The town of St Lucia itself leaves a lot to be desired though, being made up primarily of backpackers, guest houses, tourist shops and restaurants all of which were full or closed on New Year’s day.
There was ONE restaurant open in the whole town and it was full with a queue of people waiting for tables. We eventually managed to find one pasty in a garage for dinner… The town has also not woken up to the fact that apartheid is over, and segregation continues there, as we drove through one area it was all whites and just 10 metres down the same road, all blacks. Crazy. I’m getting used to walking into restaurants and having people give us strange looks as I’m with a black guy, even though he could easily be American. Apparently the same segregation occurred on the beach too with a white area and a black area. The world is mad sometimes.
Anyway, we were staying at a very tranquil guest house in a little place called Monzi, just outside St. Lucia. We virtually had the place to ourselves and enjoyed lounging around in the garden hammocks under massive chestnut trees, by the swimming pool. It’s a great place to stay and very reasonably priced too, so it you are around that area check it out – it’s called Marnik Lodge and it’s a real find!
The main reason for going up that way was to see some wildlife and one day was spent at Hluhluwe-Umfolozi Game Reserve. It took us a while to find the way in, having driven right up to the North Gate entrance by mistake. As soon as we were in the park we spotted a family of bushpigs and excitedly thought we’d see lots more of them… 2 hours later all we’d managed to see was an eagle, a tortoise (ufudu in Zulu – one of the first words I ever learnt!), many swallows and a lone dung beetle ( minus any dung!)
Game Reserves are funny places, we’d made the mistake of going around 1pm when it was hot and all sensible animals were hiding under the trees somewhere. The park is massive – probably bigger than a city and because it’s summer the grass was high. You drive round scanning the horizon for anything that could look like it moves and get quite disheartened by the lack of creatures. And then suddenly without any warning, a rhino in the field nearby… and the excitement of being close to these amazing, not to mention dangerous, creatures takes away all previous boredom and frustration.
We failed to find any elephant or big cats, but did see many giraffe and zebra and all sorts of deer and some buffalo, so we did do quite well in the end. And I got to use my new binoculars from the staff at Copsewood – cheers guys, they are GREAT!
Swallows are strange birds. They fly very close to the ground in front of the car and then sit in the road facing the cars, almost as if they are playing a game of ‘chicken’. Just as you can see the whites of their eyes they suddenly take off and fly directly towards the car and then over and away… crazy birds…
Highlight of the second day of game reserve – this time at St Lucia – was a black rhino right up close to the road, and also a tiny Vervet monkey beckoning me to come closer in the car park of the beach (cheeky little so-and-so). I kind of imagined that he was the cute one to attract the tourist and that the rest of his mates were hiding in the bushes ready to ambush unsuspecting visitors and steal cameras and food… but I was onto them and didn’t get too close… BEWARE – MONKEYS ARE A PROBLEM said the sign. Remember that.
Disappointing not to come face to face with any really dangerous creatures – the elephants are apparently rather aggressive and need to be approached with care. Big cats are lazy so we gave up hope of finding them, but you’d think you’d be able to spot an elephant, after all they are not so small…
Tips for travellers – Games to play in a Game Reserve
Number 1 – Bluffing
Drive along at a slow enough rate until you have a few cars behind you. Then stop and put indicators on. Look out over the bush and point excitedly, get out binoculars. Remember to put on hazards for maximum effect. Then when all the other cars have stopped to look and are craning their necks to see what you see (precisely nothing but trees), drive away quickly chucking about how gullible some people are! Award points for number of vehicles stopped. (best played in convoy)
(we didn’t try this, but how we wanted to! )
One guy did get us though, by coming towards us, motioning for us to slow down and pointing back to the way he’d come. I really hoped we were going to see something spectacular, but no, nothing at all… Of course whatever he’d seen could have meandered on by the time we got there.
Thoroughly recommend visiting a game park at least once in your life, hours of fun and so unpredictable too.…
St Lucia Wetlands is a world heritage site boasting great sandy beaches, lots of wildlife, lakes and an estuary. It’s very picturesque. The town of St Lucia itself leaves a lot to be desired though, being made up primarily of backpackers, guest houses, tourist shops and restaurants all of which were full or closed on New Year’s day.
There was ONE restaurant open in the whole town and it was full with a queue of people waiting for tables. We eventually managed to find one pasty in a garage for dinner… The town has also not woken up to the fact that apartheid is over, and segregation continues there, as we drove through one area it was all whites and just 10 metres down the same road, all blacks. Crazy. I’m getting used to walking into restaurants and having people give us strange looks as I’m with a black guy, even though he could easily be American. Apparently the same segregation occurred on the beach too with a white area and a black area. The world is mad sometimes.
Anyway, we were staying at a very tranquil guest house in a little place called Monzi, just outside St. Lucia. We virtually had the place to ourselves and enjoyed lounging around in the garden hammocks under massive chestnut trees, by the swimming pool. It’s a great place to stay and very reasonably priced too, so it you are around that area check it out – it’s called Marnik Lodge and it’s a real find!
The main reason for going up that way was to see some wildlife and one day was spent at Hluhluwe-Umfolozi Game Reserve. It took us a while to find the way in, having driven right up to the North Gate entrance by mistake. As soon as we were in the park we spotted a family of bushpigs and excitedly thought we’d see lots more of them… 2 hours later all we’d managed to see was an eagle, a tortoise (ufudu in Zulu – one of the first words I ever learnt!), many swallows and a lone dung beetle ( minus any dung!)
Game Reserves are funny places, we’d made the mistake of going around 1pm when it was hot and all sensible animals were hiding under the trees somewhere. The park is massive – probably bigger than a city and because it’s summer the grass was high. You drive round scanning the horizon for anything that could look like it moves and get quite disheartened by the lack of creatures. And then suddenly without any warning, a rhino in the field nearby… and the excitement of being close to these amazing, not to mention dangerous, creatures takes away all previous boredom and frustration.
We failed to find any elephant or big cats, but did see many giraffe and zebra and all sorts of deer and some buffalo, so we did do quite well in the end. And I got to use my new binoculars from the staff at Copsewood – cheers guys, they are GREAT!
Swallows are strange birds. They fly very close to the ground in front of the car and then sit in the road facing the cars, almost as if they are playing a game of ‘chicken’. Just as you can see the whites of their eyes they suddenly take off and fly directly towards the car and then over and away… crazy birds…
Highlight of the second day of game reserve – this time at St Lucia – was a black rhino right up close to the road, and also a tiny Vervet monkey beckoning me to come closer in the car park of the beach (cheeky little so-and-so). I kind of imagined that he was the cute one to attract the tourist and that the rest of his mates were hiding in the bushes ready to ambush unsuspecting visitors and steal cameras and food… but I was onto them and didn’t get too close… BEWARE – MONKEYS ARE A PROBLEM said the sign. Remember that.
Disappointing not to come face to face with any really dangerous creatures – the elephants are apparently rather aggressive and need to be approached with care. Big cats are lazy so we gave up hope of finding them, but you’d think you’d be able to spot an elephant, after all they are not so small…
Tips for travellers – Games to play in a Game Reserve
Number 1 – Bluffing
Drive along at a slow enough rate until you have a few cars behind you. Then stop and put indicators on. Look out over the bush and point excitedly, get out binoculars. Remember to put on hazards for maximum effect. Then when all the other cars have stopped to look and are craning their necks to see what you see (precisely nothing but trees), drive away quickly chucking about how gullible some people are! Award points for number of vehicles stopped. (best played in convoy)
(we didn’t try this, but how we wanted to! )
One guy did get us though, by coming towards us, motioning for us to slow down and pointing back to the way he’d come. I really hoped we were going to see something spectacular, but no, nothing at all… Of course whatever he’d seen could have meandered on by the time we got there.
Thoroughly recommend visiting a game park at least once in your life, hours of fun and so unpredictable too.…
posted by Caroline @ 3:37 pm
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