Eastern Kwazulu-Natal (Wildlife Adventure)

JUNE 2019

After a slow and congested drive from home we finally arrived at Heathrow for our trip to South Africa. Having secured good seats on the plane, the 11-hour flight was reasonably painless. Then with a smooth route through customs and a swift rental car pick-up, we soon found ourselves heading east out of Johannesburg with our destination of Piet Retief only three and a half hours away.
Piet Retief was only an overnighter, to break the journey to St Lucia in the southeast corner of Kwazulu Natal. We (Malc, Anne & Rob) had a comfortable room and had a nice meal in “Munch”, which was all we needed to refresh us for the onward journey the next day. The journey from Johannesburg to Piet Retief was through fairly flat mining and agricultural land, but the route on to St Lucia was much more interesting. The land was more undulating now, as we travelled south through the Zulu heartland with the country border of Eswatini (formerly Swaziland) not far to the east. Finally we arrived at the massive iSimangaliso wetlands (see below) and its entrance town of St Lucia. St Lucia, and a very pleasant river front apartment, was the base for our six nights and five-day stay, enough time to fully explore the area.
Most days were spent in the iSimangaliso Park sampling its incredible diverse landscape and watching its varied wildlife. But this wasn’t all game drives, there were short hikes to view points, long sandy beaches and rock pools to discover, plus we got on the water for a lake cruise. The lake cruise was primarily to get up and close to some of the 800 Hippo’s that live in the area but also to spot other lake residents, which include massive Nile Crocodiles, African Fish Eagles, etc.

Cape Vidal Beach

Grey headed gull

A few Cape Buffalo

Walking along Cape Vidal beach

Mission Beach at high tide

iSimangaliso Wetland Park road network

Red Duiker

Male Kudu

Herd of Zebra in iSimangaliso Wetland Park

A tower of Giraffes in iSimangaliso Wetland Park

Trumpeter Hornbill

Crowned Hornbill

Zebras

Dragonfly

Caution signs

View of Lake St Lucia

View from top of viewing tower in iSimangaliso Wetland Park

White Rhino in iSimangaliso Wetland Park

One of many Rock pools on Mission Beach

Mission Rock Beach at low tide

Warthog greeting

View over iSimangaliso Wetland Park

African Fish Eagle

Cruise boat in iSimangaliso Wetland Park

happy Hippo

Hidding Hippo

Alpha male of the hippo pool yawning

Sunset and Hippo pool

Hippo taking to the water

Our next location was just a one-hour drive from St Lucia. Our route took us past small towns and villages and required a high degree of concentration to avoid the goats and cattle that wondered into the road without warning. All successfully negotiated we arrived at our next destination; South Africa’s oldest protected area, the Hluhluwe-iMfolozi Park. Covering an area of almost 100,000 hectares, the park is home to some of Africa’s most endangered and iconic wildlife, which was immediately obvious as we were greeted by a couple of Elephants at the entrance gate.

First sighting of Elephant at iMfolozi entrance gate

The Hluhluwe-iMfolozi Park was once two parks but is now joined by a wildlife corridor to create its current form. We had four nights in the park, first staying in the iMfolozi section then moving to Hluhluwe. Our stay in iMfolozi was at a bush camp called Mpila and in a nice self-catering cottage with views over the surrounding landscape.

View over iMfolozi

Blue Wax Bill

Colourful lizard

Being a bush camp meant there were no fences so we had to be mindful of what could walk through the camp at any time. During our stay we only had Impala, Warthog and Vervet Monkeys for company, but some guests had encountered Hyena’s trying to steal meat from their Braai (BBQ). Our two days in iMfolozi was spent doing self-guided game drives along the gravel tracks that provided access to some parts of the park. The weather was great, albeit a bit nippy early in the morning; the scenery stunning and the wildlife sightings pretty good. It was nice to spend time with some of our favourite African creatures and especially good when an African Painted Dog (formally African Wild Dog) tolerated our company for about 20 minutes whilst he selected his dinner for that evening. African Painted Dogs are a rare sighting (they are on the critically endangered list) and normally found in packs, but this one was on its own, so we assumed he was acting as a scout for the rest.

Giraffe

Glossy Starling

Male Impala

Female Impala

White Rhino

Sleeping White Rhino

White Rhino relaxing by a mud hole in iMfolozi Park

Male Babboon

Mouse Birds

Blue Wildebeast

View of the river iMfolozi

Painted Dog in iMfolozi

Painted Dog in iMfolozi

Painted Dog in iMfolozi

Painted Dog in iMfolozi

Painted Dog in iMfolozi

Our two days flashed by and we were on the move again, but only into the other side of the park. Our next two nights were at the Hilltop Camp in the Hluhluwe section. Hilltop is a fenced camp with more facilities, restaurant, etc., and our accommodation was in a split-level house with magnificent views from our windows and terrace. Although fenced, Nyala, Impala, Baboon, and Vervet Monkeys still seemed to find their way into the compound.

Vervet Monkey on our balcony

Sunset from our balcony in Hluhluwe Park

Our accommodation (third chalet on the right) in Hluhluwe park

View over Hluhluwe

Activities here were pretty similar to iMfolozi, with plenty of game drives amongst the beautiful wildlife and in more amazing scenery. Again the gravel roads gave us access to a reasonable amount of the park, but we were glad we had hired a high clearance vehicle, as some sections were quite tough to negotiate. All in all it was a very enjoyable stay, but especially memorable for a 24hour period right near the end (see below).

White Rhino at water hole

White Rhino scratching an hitch on a log

Red Billed Oxpecker

Cape Buffalo

Blue Wildebeest

Hluhluwe View

Black-Tip Mangose

Elephant at water hole

Giraffe on the road in Hluhluwe

Elephant drinking at water hole in Hluhluwe

White Backed Vulture

Sadly our time in the park was now over and we were off on fresh and very different adventures. We now travelled right across to the other side of the state and to the Drakensberg Mountains (see Western Kwazulu Natal Blog).

Personal Observations & Interesting Facts

South Africa and the State of Kwazulu Natal
The Province of Kwazulu Natal sits on the eastern side of South Africa and is about the size of Portugal. Kwazulu means the place of the Zulu people and Natal is the name of the old province that once occupied part of the area. To the south the land falls away into the Indian Ocean and is the location of its biggest city, that of Durban. To the west it buffs up against the Drakensberg Mountains, with peaks of over 3,000 meters. To the east it borders the countries of Eswatini and Mozambique and to the north can be found South Africa’s largest city Johannesburg.

iSimangaliso Wetland Park
The park is situated on the east coast of Kwazulu Natal and runs almost from the Mozambique border in the north to the St Lucia estuary in the south. It is South Africa’s third largest protected area, covering 3,280km2, and became its first UNESCO World Heritage site in 1999, because of its rich biodiversity. The area combines lakes, rivers, open plains, forest, dunes and the Indian Ocean coast, to provided a home for a great variety of flora and fauna.

Rhino Crisis
The population of the African Rhino species, along with their Asian cousins, has plummeted by over 90% in the last century. Now, with the exception of the African White Rhino, all are on the verge of extinction. A few decades ago the population of African White (but not the northern sub-species) and Black Rhino’s had stabilised and was beginning to increase. But in recent years this trend has taken a massive turn for the worse. Today, approximately three Rhino’s a day are poached to feed the insatiable Chinese and Vietnamese appetite for Rhino horn. And this is even with the vast increase in Anti-Poaching units that now patrol African parks. With Rhino horn more valuable than gold the poaching operations are very well funded and heavily armed. This makes the job of the Anti-Poaching units very dangerous with many individuals losing their lives.
So what can be done? Most importantly, change the mind of the consumer. Buyers in China and Vietnam believe that Rhino horn is the cure for many ailments, none of which have any scientific proof. In fact, the demand is so great at the moment; most of the Rhino horn in circulation isn’t Rhino at all, its ground Water Buffalo horn sold as Rhino, further disproving the medicinal claims. But until the consumers see sense, interim measures are being put in place to deter the poachers. These deterrents come in many forms; the one chosen by the iSimangaliso Park is de-horning, whilst the Hluhluwe- iMfolozi Park with its more sophisticated Anti-Poaching operation, was able to avoid this. These are amongst many drastic actions being taken throughout South Africa to ward off the extinction of Rhino in the wild, but all have their drawbacks and none are considered ideal.
To understand the plight of the Rhino more fully, the film documentary “Stoop” is a must watch.

White Rhino de-horned in iSimangaliso Wetland Park

White Rhino with his horns in iMfolozi

Beautiful White Rhino with Horn in iMfolozi

White Rhino in iMfolozi

A very memorable 24 hours
It all started with a night drive, this time organised by the camp and with a driver/guide (you are not allowed to self-drive in the park after dark), and it was only Malc and Rob, as Anne didn’t fancy the cold, which is guaranteed in the back of an open 4x4 when the sun goes down. The drive was fantastic, with some great sighting of nocturnal activity, that was until an incident right near the end and with the camp in sight.
We had just passed a very large single tusked bull Elephant walking along the edge of the road in the opposite direction, when we realised another large bull (with both tusks) was coming down the road towards us, The guide soon realised that these two were in the process of having a fight, and when the first bull turned around, knew we were now in the middle of it. With an aggressive Elephant in front of us and one behind, it looked like we would be squashed in the middle. The guide decided that the only course of action was to get off the road into the bush, but not too far as the ground fell away steeply, and hope that the Elephants would ignore us. This worked to an extent, but neither bulls were happy with our presence, both in turn getting very close to the Land Cruiser, with their tusks almost touching the roof, ears flapping aggressively and their breath wafting all around us. We thought any minute now we are going to be tipped over or crushed. At this stage the guide radioed the camp for help, and in a few minutes another Land Cruiser arrived on the scene. After a bit of a stand off, a lot of engine revving and Elephant trumpeting, the Elephants were persuaded to leave the area and disaster was averted. Back at the camp, shaken but not stirred, we relayed the story to Anne, who had heard the commotion form our terrace but couldn’t see the action because of the dark.
The following morning started in a similar fashion to the ones that had gone before, an early morning game drive followed by a late breakfast. But what was not normal was the smoke that started to appear from the hillside woodland about 200 meters below our house. That smoke then began to spread across the hillside with flames becoming very visible. We considered preparing for evacuation, but because the staff attending the fire seemed pretty relaxed by the whole situation, we decided it wasn’t anything to be concerned about. We watched men in yellow jackets with water tanks on their back spraying the burnt ground (a very similar arrangement to a weed killer unit used in Europe) and assumed the fire was under control. Fortunately by early afternoon the flames and smoke had disappeared and all was back to normal. This was our queue to go out for the second game drive of the day.

Fire in front of chalet

A few hours later we were back, very pleased with our sightings and ready to relax before dinner. However, it wasn’t long before we heard rumblings and tree branches breaking just outside the house. Then, low and behold two young bull Elephants appeared, in what was effectively, our back garden. They progressed to eat the tall grass and young trees right outside our bedroom window and provided us with a great view from our terrace. It was a wonderful and rare experience to see wild Elephants at such close range and with the safety of a solid elevated viewpoint.

Elephant in our "back garden"

Elephant in our "back garden"

Elephant in our "back garden"

Elephant in our "back garden"

But our wildlife close up encounters hadn’t finished yet. Whilst viewing the Elephants from our terrace we were joined by a couple of inquisitive Vervet Monkeys, never getting too close just looking for food. What was more of an issue was the large male Baboon who wanted to also get in on the action. So we had to chase them all away before going back into the house, the Elephants had now moved on. But that wasn’t the end of it, the Vervet Monkeys were soon back and looking in through our glass door. This we ignored, until they started to pull on the door handle. Fortunately we had locked the door, otherwise we would have had two unwanted guests running riot inside the house.

Vervet Monkey at our window

From then on things returned to normality, but left us with a very memorable 24 hours.