KwaZulu Natal Tour - Day 1

Getting ready to board the boat for our tour

Hippo walking on the bottom

Crocodile sunning himself

Hippos don't swim but walk on the bottom

On a cool day the hippos like to be on land

A new family of hippos

Carol holding a hippo tooth

Zebras

Warthog

Lions resting during the day

View of the sweeping mountains and valleys of the park

Female Nyala

Elephant herd at dusk

Rhino

Lion at dusk

Goliath Heron

African Cape Buffalo

KwaZulu Natal Tour - Day 1

September 19, 2016

We left Durban 8:00am Monday with our guide, Greg Garson, in his nine passenger van for a two and one-half hour drive north along the coast to the Saint Lucia Estuary, an inland wetlands park that was once open to the ocean but which, since 2007 has been closed off, due to climate change. The water part is home to around eight hundred hippos and one thousand Nile crocodiles, as well as much other bird, and animal, life. Once there we took a two hour boat ride on the shallow lake. We saw many families of hippos along the way - a family consisting of one male and very many females and offspring. Hippos don't swim, but walk on the lake or stand on their hind legs, and it was fun to watch them appearing and disappearing in the water. As sit was a rather cool day, many were also on land trying to soak up whatever sun there was. We managed to spot a couple of crocodiles sunning themselves as well, but mostly they were hidden in the water. In addition to the hippos and crocs we saw African Fish Eagle, Goliath Heron and Egyptian geese,  Weaver birds, and some antelope on shore. Since the time the wetlands area was closed to the ocean the salinity of the water has reduced and the number of species residing there has decrease by half. The boat captain was extremely well informed regarding the wetlands and the animals and we enjoyed her narrative along the way.

Mid afternoon  we continued to the Hluhluwe (pronounced Shoeslouie) Game Reserve, a 964 square kim park established in part to help preserve the rhino.It is owned by the people of South Africa and run by the South African Conservation Authority. It is the oldest proclaimed game park in the country. In just the short 15 km drive from the park entrance to Hilltop Camp, where we would be staying for two days, we say rhinos, buffalo, and lions, three of the "big five! It was awesome to see these animals in their own environment. Our guide, Greg, was very knowledgeable and we learned a fair bit about their habits, and what else we could expect to see.

After checking in to Hilltop Camp and moving our gear to our rooms, a nice chalet with all the comforts of home, at five pm we took a three hour tour in an open ten seater jeep through the park with a local guide, Welcome. Before it got dark we had seen elephants, our fourth of the "big five', as well as more rhino, waterbucks, nyalas, zebras duiker and lions. As it grew dark we used two spotlights, one shining out each side of the vehicle, to spot game. We were able to see bushbucks, impalas, bush pigs, more nyalas, baboons and buffalo before heading back to the Camp for a large buffet dinner.

The parkland is spectacular, with vast valleys and long sloping hills.The mountains here are like very large sweeping hills, however they are the remnants of the oldest mountains in the world and have been worn down over many millions of years.  Being the dry season there isn't a lot of high grass growing so the animals are easier to see. We were fortunate that the rain that we suffered through in Durban on the weekend turned the vegetation up here green and the animals were loving it.