Category: South Africa

Umlani Bush Camp to Johannesburg via Mount Sheba

Yesterday, we reluctantly departed Umlani Bush Camp to make our way back to Johannesburg, with a one-night stop at a lodge in Mount Sheba on the panoramic route, arriving back in Jo-Burg today at about 2:30 pm. The drive was very scenic and was quite similar in ways to the interior of British Columbia, with arid hills and sweeping mountain views. Unfortunately, as we neared Jo-Burg, we encountered a very thick smog of coal smoke from a nearby power station.

We left 30+ C weather in Kruger and Umlani Camp for a temperate 17 C in Jo-Burg. We’ll spend 4 nights here, drop off our Toyota Corolla, pick up our Toyota TRAX 4 x 4 HILUX camper, do some grocery shopping and then head out to the great wide open for 6 weeks of camping, lodging, self-drive safaris and adventure in Namibia and Botswana.

Before we enter Namibia, we’ll spend a night in Kuruman in the Northern Cape Province and then 2 nights camping on the South African side of the Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park in the Kalahari Desert. Once we enter Namibia, we’ll have spent over 6 weeks travelling through South Africa.

Below is a pic of our home for the next 6 weeks.

Swaziland to Kruger National Park

Swaziland to Kruger National Park

We arrived at Berg-en-Dal rest camp in Kruger NP early and before our 2:00 pm check-in, so we had a burger at the rest camp restaurant, checked in and decided to do a self-drive for a couple of hours before the 5:30 gate closing time.

The camp/lodge offers ranger-guided safaris, so we booked an early (5:30 am) safari and an afternoon safari for the next day. The self-drive roads were a little confusing, but we did manage to spot elephants, giraffes, impala and kudu.

Our lodge accommodation was secluded, comfortable and quiet, and our private patio faced the forest, where baboons stopped by to check us out. At night, we were lucky to see two bush babies jumping through the trees nearby.

The camp offered two safari vehicle types, one that seated probably 15-20 people and two others that seated about 8. Not knowing how many people would be on the morning drive, we got up at 4:30 am, had a coffee and went to the meeting point by 5:00 am, determined to get the best seats on whatever safari 4 x 4 would be used.

To our amazement and delight we were the only two booked for the drive!

The morning drive revealed beautiful birds, Cape buffalo, elephant, giraffe and incredible landscapes.

The morning was quite cold but, incredibly, warmed up to 34 C by mid-afternoon, so we had a very comfortable and rewarding afternoon drive, the highlight being a very agitated bull elephant in musth who decided to charge our safari truck.

This was a highlight and the video is attached. All in all, a great couple of days but still no lions!

Next stop Umlani Bush Camp in the Timbavati region of the greater Kruger NP.

Umlani Bush Camp

On our way this morning to Umlani Bush Camp after 2 1/2 days and some crazy elephant action in Kruger National Park. We’ll be spending 3 nights at the camp without electricity in the Timbavati, which is part of the northern Greater Kruger NP region, on a 10,000-hectare private reserve, with one night spent in a tree house 3 km away from the camp. Should be interesting!

Kruger NP to Umlani Bush Camp

Umlani Bush Camp is hard to put into words. Nestled in more than 10,000 hectares of African wilderness, we did 5 safaris totalling more than 17 hours of off-road bush driving. We encountered close-up lions, wild dogs, elephants, giraffes, rhinos, leopards, hyenas, Cape buffalo and the list goes on.

The highlight was probably seeing a very rare white female lion and staying overnight in a tree house 3 km from camp, located beside a watering hole. We fell asleep listening to the roar of nearby lions and were awoken at 3:00 am to a herd of elephants below us, stopping at the hole for an early morning drink.

We drank wine and gazed at the stars and the amazing Milky Way above. Absolutely awe-inspiring with no moon and no light pollution.

When we awoke at around 5:30 am, waiting for our morning safari pickup, I scanned the edges of the watering hole. Joyce asked if I could see anything, and I said yes, a couple of male lions having a drink. No way! Yes way! There they were.

We watched them drink and could hear them slurping the water, and then they headed off on their merry way, probably looking for their next kill. People assume only the female lion does the hunting, but males without a pride do their fair share of killing too.

We were picked up at about 6:15 am, had a hot cup of coffee, two tiny pancakes and then headed out to what would be another fantastic morning of rare and not often seen animal sightings: a leopard sitting in a tree with a very full stomach, a pack of wild dogs ravaging the leopard’s impala kill below his tree and 8 hyenas circling around waiting for the scraps, all while a beautiful white-breasted vulture circled above. Truly fantastic.

Throughout our three days, we did a bush walk with our armed ranger and sat quietly watching two elephants dig for water in a dry river bed. We sat and drank beers on a camp deck overlooking a dry river bed, watching mother and baby elephants 100 metres away, listened to Cape buffalo grunting and making their beds beside our hut while we slept, wondering if they had any desire to check us out, and sat around a fire after a long day gazing at the stars.

As I said, very hard to put into words the vastness, solitude and back-to-nature experience we had at Umlani Bush Camp.

We were truly sad to leave this magical place.

iSimangaliso to Swaziland

Today, we took the 4 x 4 transport back to our car and headed northwest to the Kingdom of Swaziland for a one-night stopover at a lodge before heading to Kruger National Park for 5 days of safaris and game viewing. Below are a few pics highlighting the beauty of the Swaziland landscape.

After two fantastic days and three amazing safaris through Hluhluwe-Imfolozi park we traveled north to our 4 x 4 pick up point to take us for two nights to Thonga Beach Lodge, a luxurious lodge nestled in the dunes and forests of the Maputuland or Elephant coast and located in part of the 332,000 hectare iSimangaliso Wetland Park which was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1992. Our bush bungalow and surrounding forest and beach was spectacular.

Umhlanga to Hluhluwe

July 7th, we departed Umhlanga for another long drive to Hluhluwe-Imfolozi Park. The park is the oldest proclaimed reserve in Africa, comprising 960 sq. km of hilly topography in central Zululand, KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. The Big Five can be found here, and through conservation efforts, the park boasts the largest population of white rhinos in the world.

Unfortunately, a few days before our arrival, 6 rhinos were killed by poachers, and then several days later, 3 poachers were arrested and 2 were killed by the anti-poaching patrols. We feel no sympathy for the poachers.

We encountered many rhinos, elephants, Cape buffalo, kudu and giraffes, and were very lucky to see a pack of wild dogs in the distance, which is a very rare occurrence. We still haven’t been up close to lions yet. I’m sure we’ll see these soon in Kruger National Park.

We stayed at Rhino Ridge Safari Lodge in a luxury villa suite with a private deck and incredible panoramic views of the hills and valleys of the surrounding park.

Chintsa to Durban/Umhlanga, the slightly lost route

What was supposed to be 654 km and approximately 8 hours of driving turned into probably 700+ km and 10 1/2 hours of travel time.

Shit happens when you miss important road signs and continue on your merry way wondering why all of the semi-trailer traffic has ceased to exist. Could we be going the wrong way?  

We turned on our trusty iPhone Maps navigator and were immediately told, “U-Turn, U-Turn!!!” Our hunch was correct, so we U-turned and were told to turn left on P601, about 1 km down the road. Great, not too far out of the way.

We turned onto P601, and after no more than 5 km, the road went from a small paved surface to a very rough gravel road. This doesn’t look good, but our iPhone must know some sort of shortcut? We followed the gravel road for 17 km through beautiful hills and planted pine trees and learned that silviculture is thriving in this area.

We finally connected to a paved road and were told to turn left 1 km ahead. When we reached our turning point, we discovered another very rough gravel road.

As it turned out, we didn’t have cell reception, so the directions we were receiving were stuck in a loop! Okay, now what?

We did see a sign that the road we were on would eventually lead to the highway we needed, but didn’t know if we would be backtracking or not, so we ignored our maps and finally found our way to the main highway heading to Durban.

The drive from Chintsa to Durban is very rural and filled with hills, mountains, hazy skies from wood smoke, small towns and townships. Our detour added wandering cows and horses and a true taste of real-life rural Africa.