DRAKENSBERG MOUNTAINS (and little known facts)

Saturday 29th Jan - Eventually met up with long standing friends, Jean and Ross, from Cape Town, ex-Cheshire, and now living there, on Thursday. Their flight was delayed, but Durban Airport is better than most for hanging around in. Once we had picked up car, we went to stay the first night with their step-niece Claire and fiancee Lee, at a wonderful farm Guest House(Dalmore Farm), where they currently live, and will be getting married in the fields there in a couple of months.

Pippa and Andrew fully deserve their 5 star rating on TripAdviser and we had a great stay, with a personally guided early morning safari with Lee, who is a qualified guide, at nearby little used but great Spioenkop Nature Reserve. Loads of giraffes, zebra and various antelopes. And a

favourite bird – the goliath heron – just enormous

For those into quizzes and well known little known facts – the answer to “where does the name “Kop” come from as per Liverpool FC?” – see here

Then on to Ardmore Farm and a lovely surprise upgrade to this house in the midst of rolling fields and views of the mountains.

Tough not to loll around on the veranda, by the pool or in the main house balconies, but today we went for a hot walk in the nearby Drakensburg mountains –

for those in the know it was up to the Sphinx in the Monks Cowl and Champagne Castle area.

As for tomorrow -the boys are hoping the afternoon thunderstorms come early – Murray in the Aussie Final!!! Maybe, just maybe, ??????

POSTCRIPT SUNDAY - Oh dear!!!!

CAREFREE CAMPING

We spent 3 nights in Imfolozi Park and this was our home

The tent was pretty rugged, but had great shower, plus proper loo and the separate kitchen had all s/c stuff. Just no electric between 10 pm and 7 am and had to keep the kitchen door locked (see Graham at the gate), plus the fridge and all cupboards, to keep the monkeys out. So basic, but not basic.

We were right in the bush, wart hogs in garden

– plus impala, guinea fowl and unfortunately (fortunately!) missed 4 lions in the camp one morning whilst we were out eyeballing an elephant and watching roadside giraffe, rhino, zebra and impala.

We had to bring all our own food and drink in for 3 days and cooked on the braai each night – fortunately, still no sign of mossies, but did take advantage of the mossie nets at night just in case and to give us the feeling of Africa even more. As if we could forget!

Giraffe and baby, bee eater, roller

CLOSE ENCOUNTERS

Adrenaline rush time – after watching 2 stampeding rhinos cross the road just in front of us (we decided to give way to them as they rushed down the hill towards us) we watched this elephant from the other side of the bridge

then watched these 2 new species of swallow on the bridge

and went on our way – until we passed the bush behind where jumbo is, and he had decided to turn around and cross the road again. We were a few feet from him – decided not to hang around for more photos of a full frontal, and moved swiftly on!

Then a last drive out on the last afternoon in the Parks and caught up with these amazing creatures – watched them laze and stroll about for half an hour just a few yards from the road.

There was one male and 6 females or fully grown young ones – but just as our adrenaline was subsiding, Graham saw this in his rear view mirror

Never realised hyenas were so large – he wasn’t interested in us, but had good nosey at the lions, before wandering off again. It’s amazing how one minute all the animals are there and just as suddenly they completely disappear and vice versa just appear out of nowhere.

An amazing African safari experience for 10 days – all we could have hoped for and thank you to Gareth and Kate for recommending the area instead of the more obvious Kruger – it couldn’t have been any better. (PS We are back in your honeymoon suite at Goble Palms in Durban to post all these blog after being away from wifi for 4 days)

IN THE DARK, PLUS CROCS,HIPPOS AND FOOTBALL

NOTE: 22/1/2011 FLOODS NEWS PER BBC NOT AFFECTED US – RAIN FORECAST BUT SHOULD BE OK IN OUR AREA.

Life gets more amazing by the hour – after the excitement of the walk in the Park (read open bushland with wildlife around every blade of grass) on our ownsome, we went on a 3 hour night safari, with a Zulu guide, who could spot and ID animals by their eyes (we had 2 huge lamps as well as headlights) half a mile away.

We met fighting buffalos, 5 types of deer/antelope, several gorgeous chamaeleons, including this baby one (the only photos you can get in the dark!)

bush pig, bush babies in the trees and various night birds. And all down rough, grassy, disappearing tracks in the middle of nowhere (well, I guess he knew) under the full moon and stars (which he also knew). Has to be one of the major highlights of this trip and many other trips.

And thank goodness for DEET is all I can say.

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On Saturday we followed the Moody family suggestion and did the hippo and croc cruise. Some of their piccies were much better, but think we managed most of the important ones. Hippos, crocs, fish eagle, giant kingfisher, pied kingfishers and other wetland birds. Later on on the way to our meal, a family of mongoose crossed the road as well as the ubiquitous monkeys.

And finally for our last night at St Lucia, Graham found his perfect bar, watching United win 5-0, ice cold beer in hand, whilst looking out of the window (dark specs) at hippos and other wildlife on the river! Bliss!

HOT, HUMID AND HIPPOS IN TOWN

Staying in St Lucia on the east coast just above Durban. surrounded by huge wetland area of lakes and swamps, and teeming with wildlife and birds. The town consists of a main street with a few restaurants and shops and backed by several streets of houses and places to stay in lush bush. We are still waiting to see the hippos walking in the main street at night, maybe next 2 nights!

We chose our guest house (Parkers) off the internet (this is our room)

highly recommended on Tripadvisor and rightly so, beautiful room and shower, great breakfasts, pool, wifi, beach towels, cool bags for trips to the beach, dining room can be used for takeaways, and amazingly helpful owners. Plus all my laundry done and ironed!

Their main work is organising first time self drive trips across much of Africa (not just SA) and if they pay as much attention to detail as with the guest house, it would be well worth letting them organise your trip. http://www.parkertours.co.za/

We went for a meal one night at the Ocean Buffet, as recommended by Lorraine and Chris, good recommendation, thanks!

The wildlife and birds have been amazing, mostly done on our own with walks and drives out for the day, Graham’s self drive safaris and only £8 for the entry to the Park for a day. Some of the animals include

The hippos are a few feet away from the garden of the restaurant where we were having our pizza.

Today we went on a 3.5 hr walk in the bush on our own (see below) and saw impala, wildebeest, zebra, tortoise, waterbuck, warthogs and more, and plenty of birds, pretty exciting stuff and felt very brave!

BIRDS GALORE

A few pictures for the birdwatchers amongst you, just fantastic birdlife, we could sit all day on our balcony and see birds like these hornbills, 3 different sorts so far. Don’t even need to leave our wine and beer! And a big THANK YOU to Kate and Gareth for their Christmas present of a detailed bird book and to Lorraine and Chris for their borrowed one, we need them both and even then have to ask the Ranger for the really difficult ones.

Also seen lots of birds of prey, luckily we had a ranger to help us out with what they were, difficult as always. Even the brightly coloured ones cause problems, there are pages of yellow birds just when you think you must be able to find that one! This woolly necked stork below was in a water hole with dozens of kites flying around and several other large water birds, it got attacked by the kites but not sure they were after a baby or just its food.

The bird count and list is increasing by the hour, positively exhausting, and writing this after only 2 days (will be posted a few days later when we get to wifi land again), the wetland area is still to come.

TWO SURVIVORS

Spent 3 days at Hluhluwe Park (pronounced shushlooi I believe), a few hours north of Durban, and took two safari drives, one in the evening and one the next morning at 5 am. The animals were fantastic and really close to the vehicle and included elephant, black rhino, buffalo, giraffe, zebras, nyala and troupes of baboons. At some point I will get piccies of them all downloaded to Picasa and put a link at the side of this blog. As a taster these black rhino

mother and baby were almost sweet!

On one of the drives there was a family whose father had been brought up in a township 30 years ago, worked for 15 years for someone and then set up a hardware shop. He now has 2 shops and his son manages one and will be taking over the business soon. He loved South Africa and was so proud of his son, staging the World Cup, the wildlife and the country and was now paying for his family to stay for the third time in this wonderful park.

Then this pregnant zebra stopped right by the vehicle and you can see scratches on its neck and big healed wound on its side where a lion has sat on its back attacking it

A tale of two survivors in South Africa.

B&B in Durban

Flights out to Durban were fine and we arrived at a great B&B, Goble Palms Guesthouse, recommended by Gareth and Kate and where the family stayed last summer before their own South Africa adventure. Brilliant place and a wonderful wind down after busy day and long flights

Here is a link to their website

Now at Hluhluwe Park in a lovely self catering lodge just north of Durban, but no wifi here so only a computer connection at the main reception. So no piccies or blog updates for a few days, then hopefully some game that we see on tonights and tomorrow mornings safari drives.

Brilliant for birds though, just sit on our balcony and watch the hornbills and others fly past. the monkeys met us at the front door so keeping doors and windows shut! Lovely pool just near our lodge, a bit different to our normal YHA's and cheapo living in New Zealand.