Kruger & Coast - Swaziland, Lions, St Lucia and Valley of Thousand Hills.

 I am writing this blog on my penultimate flight from Dubai to Melbourne before catching my last flight back to Tasmania tomorrow morning. 

It’s a 12-hour flight, I wasn’t going to write a blog for the second part of my trip but this will burn some much-needed time.

Our travel group left Kruger National Park nice and early and made our way to Eswatini, this was a 6-hour drive to the border crossing.   This was a whole new experience for me and I had never crossed into another country via a car/bus before.  ( Wales but doesn’t count lol )

We jumped out of the truck, got our passports stamped and walked over to another building where we got another stamp.

The truck met us on the other side and we were officially in Swaziland. We would spend a total of two days here.  

The group arrived at the Hlane National Park camping grounds around 3:00 p.m. and set up our tents, I was like a fish out of water and Patrick our driver noticed this and came to my rescue and pitched my tent in minutes, otherwise I reckon I could have been there for another 90 minutes lol.  

Our group leader, Christian, informs us that we have short walk around the national park and we might spot a few bigger animals along the way. I was thinking we see an Impala or wild bull if we were lucky. 

“How wrong was I?”

Our ranger, whose name I can’t remember, told us the story of our he would come to the National Park in primary school and would tell them that he would have their job one day.

 His dream came true and he told us that he got 98% on the ranger test and rest is history.

We started our guided tour and up ahead he spots some rhino feces and informs us this is only fresh poo.

 I am thinking to myself;

“Great these are behind the electric fence and we won’t be getting any close to these amazingly stunning beasts”

 We would have only walked 400m and this rhino was about 150m to 200m away, and we getting closer and closer, it was then I realized that I was going to have an experience of a life time. 

He tells us to walk slowly and to not make a noise over the ground. I am suddenly shaking all over and need a big poo lol. 

The 11 of us of literally would have been no more 10m away from these rhino’s, I would be lying if I said I felt safe as I didn’t.  Our guide looks over and tells us that they have acknowledged our presence and we are not a threat. I am unsure if this made me feel any better.

We stayed here for another 10 minutes and took some selfies and videos and talk quietly about how cool this experience was. 

The group made our way back to camp site and the sun is going down, Christian tells us it will be an early 6:00 a.m. start for our last Safari and this would be our last opportunity to spot some lions.

We had been so lucky the whole trip and ticked off 4 of the big 5 animals. If you are not familiar with the big 5, they are a Lion, Leopard, African Buffalo, elephant and rhino.

 

I was pretty tired from a long day of travelling and I went straight to bed and slept like a log.

 You could feel the excitement on the jeep the next day and everyone was eager to tick off the last big five animal of our safari.

Our tour guide did the same ‘Bear Grills’ thing and lets us know that he has found some lion tracks and that they are no far away.

Around the corner we go and there two magnificent male lions with most beautiful manes you will ever see and another safari vehicle is close by. 

We let this jeep stop and take some photos first before approaching any closer.  Our guide asks us if we want to stay here longer or try and see giraffes first.

As quick as anything everyone on the jeep shouts out,

 “we will stay here the whole time, thank you ”

My phone was useless at taking high-definition photos, luckily our group had some really talented people with better photographic talent than me and they took some amazing photos (see attached)

All I really wanted was a selfie with the lions in the background for the Everyday Lions’ page. I successfully captured this and that was good enough for me.

We had captured the big five!

The rest of the day we visited some of the locals in Swaziland, here we learnt about what roles both the males and females played in their community, what some of their customs are and what they do for work, as well as a tour of their homestead. 

It was a great experience, we even got to try on some of their customary clothing and we were told that men can have as many wives as they like as long as they are rich enough to support them.

This ended up being a great two days in Swaziland, next stop would be the seaside community of St Lucia.

We crossed the border and made the quick 3-hour trip to St Lucia, here we would do a hippopotamus cruise, swim / play beach cricket in the Indian ocean and have some fish and chips in the main drag.

 I don’t want to sound ungrateful, but the hippo cruise was pretty disappointing and felt like the boat driver was actually harassing them.

If I was to give this a review, I would say it went 1 hour too long.

 I think we were spoilt in the first 6 days and any other experience would need to be out of this world to top Kruger and Swaziland. 

We left St Lucia and were now we making our way back to Durban, however we had one last stop to make in The Valley of Thousands Hills, I was very familiar with this location, as I had ran through here for the Comrades marathon. It is exactly how they describe it, it’s a beautiful setting situated about 40 km from Durban and has the most magical views looking out to valley. 

Here we would have a homestay and this would be our last night together as a group of 9.  Six of us would continue with the intrepid trip for another two weeks and David, Michelle and myself would leave the group.

The bus arrived midday and we met at a community youth center where we got a tour from one of the locals, he then took us to a spiritual healer deep in the valley, this was interesting experience and there were plenty of laughs after learning about what a sogema does.

 We rounded out the day with ‘homestay’ visit with a Lady and her family that we were told to call “big mumma”.

 

We were fed and housed with traditional meals and made very welcome, it was a great experience and one that I wouldn’t have had if I was travelling without alone.

The next day we left bright and early and made our way to Durban, this is where I spent my first 5 nights before running comrades.

I was familiar with the city and tagged along for our final day, we did a city tour and Christian explained some history before going to Ushaka, here you can watch dolphins, seals, get something to eat and visit some reptiles.

It’s like a mini-SeaWorld.

Dave and Michelle left us here, but before going they gave us each a gold painted wristband, which was a really lovely touch.

We said our good byes and talked about making contact if we were ever New Zealand or Tasmania. 

I ended up hanging out with the crew for the rest of the day before being dropped off at my hotel.

This would be the end of an amazing 9 nights I will never forget.

 I met some amazing people, had plenty of laughs and learnt a lot about South African history and culture. 

If you are reading this blog, I would highly recommend the Kruger & Coast Intrepid Tour. You won’t regret it.

Thank you, South Africa.