The oldest reserve in South Africa lies up in the northernish regions of KZN and it is a place that never fails to disappoint and remains one of my favourite places to go.
Everyone is in such hype over Kruger they forget that you can get the same experience, minus the unpleasantries of flocks of tourists and the resulting traffic jams, at the large gem called Hluhluwe-Imfolozi. While Kruger is awesome (and I'm totally stoked to be heading there in May), I would still take Hluhluwe-Imfolozi over it anyday (even though we always seem to bring the rain). The evocative rolling hills and meandering rivers of the park just tick all the right boxes. This is where I feel alive, where my heart is content and my spirit soars. I look out across the old hunting grounds of Dingiswayo and Shaka and I can feel the music of Africa fill my veins. It is in the wilderness where you can forget the corruption and the hate and all those other seemingly petty troubles we live with day by day. Oh! To be able to spend every day in nature's embrace.
This trip definitely didn’t disappoint. Almost as soon as we drove in we came across a pack of lions at a kudu kill. Must’ve just missed the actual chase (as usual) as the lions were all panting and lounging in that exhausted state after a hard day’s work. It was a fairly large pride, probably about 10-15 individuals. The lion-luck continued and we saw them every day, though it was probably the same pride as all the sightings were within the same region as the first day’s sighting.
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The trip also provided some uh…excitement in the form of being chased by a rhino. Thankfully dad was skilled enough to get the car in reverse quickly as I don’t think that the bull-bar would’ve been of much assistance against a ton of angry, testosterone-filled rhino. It was a male with a female and calf nearby so I assumed it was on rut or something.
On the topic of rhinos, by George there were a lot, we started treating them like impala eventually! Oh another rhino, and another one, oh look! There’s two more aaaaaaaaaand another one. It was great to see so many with all the depressing news of the increasing poaching numbers due to people being complete and utter morons (yup, that’s a post for another day). I still love rhinos, perhaps one day I shall do some research on them since my supervisor is also a rhino person, who knows right? Though wild dogs are still top of my research list.
We also saw quite a few hyenas, they are remarkably adorable in their odd appearance.
The other special treat was seeing cheetahs. I am a huge big cat lover (and pretty much any carnivore….or animal), they just have such a mesmerising quality about them. This was a family of five, mother and four (grown-up) cubs. We think it may be the same family we saw a year ago just all grown up. If it is though, it means the mom lost one of her babies :( But 4/5 reaching adulthood is still really good! Apparently this is a super-mom, even Adrian remarked about her when I spoke to him about it last year.
Other than that it was fairly standard game viewing with plenty of impala, huge herds of buffalo, kudu, zebras (though I got some awesome photos of two fighting), warthogs, wildebeest, nyala, waterbuck, giraffe (including a baby that had already come in close contact with a predator but luckily got away) and birds galore. Oh and there was this awesome colour-changing tree frog that amused me during lunch.
So yes, overall a good trip and can’t wait to go back!
(also WOOO a post!)
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