St Lucia with Hippo's, Crocodiles and Cheetah

We left Kruger by Melane gate, ready for the 8 hour drive down to St Lucia, due to insurance reasons we had to drive around Swaziland.

The journey down took us through mountains and grassland, a landscape that would not be out of place in wales. Actually, driving through this it felt as if we had somehow traveled to the brecon beacons. I am sure the views from the top of the mountain would have been awesome, appart from the fog that then surrounded the car, unable to see 10 meters in front of us on a small road, most of the cars we met did not even have their lights on!

Really? Hippos at night??

As we drew closer to st Lucia the landscape changed completely to forestry land, Rows and Rows of Eucalyptus trees. About an hour out of St Lucia we pulled off the main road at a big junction right onto a dirt track, that lead us to a crocodile and snake park where we had a guided talk about the snakes and crocodiles of southern Africa and held a Carpet Python (not very African I know!) The guide fed some of the Nile Crocodiles, the loud crunch of the jaws closing showing the power, always good to hear before kayaking with them tomorrow! We arrived at the B+B and had a nice cold beer with our host and settled in. Later that evening we went out for a nice steak after being warned about hippo's walking down the street. Coming back to the hotel with no electricity due to load shedding, we prepared ourselves with our kayaking safari.

Up nice and early with an amazing fried breakfast at the hotel before driving down to the launch site where we took the kayaks out to the water and had a safety briefing about what to do around the crocodiles and more importantly the hippos and the sharks. all in all don't fall in! Yes I am not out of my mind, the st Lucia estuary is home to one of the most dangerous species of shark and the only species to live in brackish waters, the bull shark also known here in Africa as the Zambezi Shark. 

<Kayaking in St Lucia

The first croc we saw was far away and then we got closer, and closer until we were 15 meters away from a croc that seemed to be sneaking up on a Egret (a bird) which eventually saw him and flew away. We didn't get as close to the hippos, we were close enough to here the eerie noise they make, sounding very much like an evil laugh! We were moving through a small chanel and another big croc was sitting on the bank about 5 meters away from us, amazing!

The Nile Crocodile!

We headed back for a quick lunch and then went to book a night drive for the next night. 

The next day was glorious sun, exactly what we needed for a trip through the reserve to the beach, the game drive on the way there was filled with huge kudu and bush buck as well as the cute red duiker. After sunbathing for a few hours both of us had burnt all over our backs, ouch! The drive back to the hotel we came across rhino again as well as watching a troop of baboons, the males were huge, almost twice the size as lajuma troop, I don't think they realised how heavy they were when one jumped on a branch much too small for his weight and with a loud crack down came monkey and branch.

That evening while waiting for the truck to take us on the game drive dad was about to walk out of the gated parking for the B+B when I said "dad! Stop now, walk back slowly!" he did so and meters away a hippo was walking casually down the road, rather surreal! 

Okay, Maybe there are hippos on the road at night 

Our guide on the night drive was extremely knowledgeable about the area, and showed us ants that create webs as well as a dwarf chameleon that is endemic to this area. After stopping for a hot chocolate and rusk we headed towards the exit of the park when all of a sudden the guide turned of the engine and slowly rolled forward, whispering about something on the road, que everyone to jump up, eyes peering into the darkness. There were spots 10 meters off the road moving, a big male leopard moving silently along, you really can see why they are thought of a ghosts. The sighting was only for a few seconds until he moved off into the bush, what an unexpected and amazing sighting.

The Ghost of the bush

The next morning we headed to the Hluhluwe-Imfolozi park (pronounce shlushluwe) feeling pretty confident, on the way in we spotted rhino and elephants as well as the ever present impala, when a car pulled up next to us, "do you realise that by marker 27 there is a cheetah sitting on a bank next to the road" we said our thanks and headed to find the cheetah, and there she was, sitting in the shade of a marula tree what a clear viewing, she even yawned right in front of us. 

Cheetah Snarl

Sleepy Cheetah

Another car stopped to tell us something, fingers crossed we listened. "just 500 meters down the road there are a pack of Wild Dog, sitting in the bush" I just couldn't believe it, the two species we tried so hard to find were sitting 500 meters away from each other, off we went. We arrived at the location, desperately searching the bush without seeing anything, until a flick of the tail gave away a wild dog, extremely hard to see in the bush. after sitting with them for 10 mins we drove off as we knew they were staying there for a while. Half an hour later we were back with the wild dogs, as we sat there watching and eating lunch finally, one of the dogs got up and walked, we can count it as a proper sighting. I was ecstatic. 

The African Wild Dog

The African Wild dog is one of the most endangered carnivores in the world, they are also known as Painted Dogs or Painted Wolves. There are between 4,000 and 6,000 dogs left in the world with their population being decimated by human wildlife conflict and habitat destruction. They require large amounts of space, ranging over 900 square miles, they are the most accomplished carnivores, they have adapted to stop lions and hyenas stealing their kills by eating the animal alive during the chase and once dead they will consume the carcass within only a few minutes. They are so effective hunters that private land owners hate them on there land and therefore will shoot the animals on sight. 

Impala!

With huge smiles on our faces we headed up to camp seeing 7 more rhino on the way! Sitting outside the safari tent reading listening to the night sounds of the African bush, all of a sudden a torch came on from another tent and dad whispered "there is something out there" I grabbed for my torch and turned it on, a spotted Hyeana was prowling in front of us, it came right underneath the raised platform we were sitting on and then stalked off! What an experience, a hyeana just a few meters away from us. I woke up in the middle of the night to get a drink, id just got back when we heard my favorite sound, a lion roaring.

The next day we drove out of the park, more rhino, this is getting silly now, 15 rhino in a 24 hour period! The last animal we saw was a herd of giraffe. We drove down to Durban to get a flight from King Shaka airport for our last part of the trip. We arrived and was giving back the car when the attendant said we would have to pay for valet because there was the smallest amount of sand in the car, stupid! 

Next week the last part of our trip, Cape Town!