Travel Diary - A South African Road Trip: The East Coast and Swaziland
The first part of this travel diary from South Africa (if you haven't already you can read it here) ended with us taking a domestic flight from Cape Town to Durban, so that is
where I will continue.
When we arrived in Durban on 31th of July we picked up
our rental car at the airport and drove to Umhlanga Rocks. We decided not to
stay Durban because it would be too dangerous according to our travel agent. Because
I have only seen the airport I am not able to have a judgement about this myself.
In Umhlanga we stayed in a beautiful guest house named Zeranka Logde, fifty
meters from the beach! Unfortunately, it was still too cold to swim. The city
centre had loads of good restaurants and pubs and also the beach promenade was
worth seeing. We stayed here for only one night which was a real shame. Great
place for a relaxing holiday, and I would love to come back one day when the
weather is good enough for a swim in the sea.
St. Lucia
The next day we drove to St. Lucia. A place known for its hippos and crocs. We stayed at the Rhino Coast Guesthouse which was nice. Here we did two excursions on one day to make sure we would be able to see those hippo’s and crocodiles. We started the day with a bike tour – obviously we are Dutch – and later we did a boat trip to spot the hippos and crocodiles. The bike tour was fun to see the surroundings of the little city, and we even spotted some hippos and crocodiles from a distance. The boat tour was absolutely amazing, and we saw so many different hippos from such a small distance. We stayed in St. Lucia for two days and we had dinner at a restaurant called ‘Reef and Dune’ both nights. The staff was very nice, and the food was really good! Especially the desserts were amazing, the dessert menu changed every day. What else can you wish for?
Hluhluwe NP
The next day, the 3rd of August, we drove off to the first Wildlife park of this trip, and our lives: the Hluhluwe National Park. We only drove 100 meters into the park and we already spotted an Elephant and Zebra’s on the road at the same time. An absolute dream start of what was still to come. We stayed at the Hilltop Camp which had a beautiful view over a valley in the National Park from which we also spotted a herd of Elephants. In the afternoon we had our first game drive with a ranger. Soon, we already spotted Rhinos. After a while it became dark, and our ranger gave us huge flashlights and told us to look for two little sparkly dots in the dark, because these would be the eyes of animals. My mum did not really get it and told our ranger that the only thing saw were small lights. We laughed at her but she was right, and that is how we ended up in the middle of an enormous herd of buffalos in the dark during our very first game drive.Swaziland
Next up, was a different country, Swaziland. Since I had never been out of Europe before, I was really happy with more stamps in my passport. We stayed at Mlilwane Wildlife Sanctuary which was absolutely great. The huts were very simple but perfect when you want to experience the real African feeling. In this sanctuary you also have the possibility to sleep in a big reconstructed bee hive, but unfortunately these were all fully booked when we were there. Here, we visited a Swazi village where we danced with the Swazi people and learned how they live. After the village tour my parents went for a hike and my sister and I decided to go horse riding through the wild park while spotting hippos and zebras. It was a lot of fun!
Panorama Route and Sabie River
After our short visit to Swaziland we went back to South Africa with as destination
Hazyview. It was a long drive and we arrived late. We stayed in a beautiful bed
and breakfast called Idle&Wild B&B, with a beautiful garden and four
lovely dogs and one nosy cat. Hazyview is mainly
known for the panorama route with many viewpoints and waterfalls. We drove it
on our second day in Hazyview and it was absolutely worth it. One tip, start
early. We started about 2 o’clock and only got to see 3 out of 10 of the
viewpoints. The most beautiful one being ‘The Three Rondavels’. We also
went to ‘Bourke’s Luck Potholes’ and ‘God’s Window’ which were also gorgeous! At
the potholes we met a lot of school children who loved to take pictures of and
with us, we felt like superstars, and they were so cute. The next day, the 8th of
August, we planned to do a raft in the Sabie river. This was arranged by our
accommodation. It was pretty scary because we saw crocodiles from so close. We
even got the chance to swim in the water which was really cold. Luckily enough
we haven’t seen any crocodiles while we were swimming. Thanks to the man who
leaded us we have a lot of funny pictures and videos of it!Kruger NP and Timbavati Game Reserve
Hazyview is located really close to the Kruger National Park, our next
destination. We stayed at the Kruger for two nights in two different rest
camps; Berg&Dal rest camp and Olifants rest camp. In these two days we got
to see the complete big 5. We were so lucky. We also saw a Python in a tree and
(what seemed to be) a cheetah from a really long distance. In the Kruger we did
all the driving ourselves. We did not want to do any game drives here because
you are riding around the park for the whole day to get to the next rest camp. Every
day we were tired of spotting animals when we finally got to there.
After these two great nights in this rather famous park
we went further to Timbavati National Park. This is a smaller national park
which is connected with the Kruger. This was the best thing of the whole
trip. Without any doubt. We stayed at Umlani Bush Camp which is a really
small camp for only 16 people in the middle of the wild park without any
fences. There is no electricity (they do have WiFi by the way haha) and the
stay includes 2 game drives a day. You had your own ranger and tracker (a
spotter in front of the car) with a group of 10 people. You were always
protected and escorted by them, even if you just had to pee. The game drives
were amazing. We saw three leopards from only 1-meter distance. We saw six
lions eating a giraffe. We saw so many incredible beautiful amazing things. You
had also the possibility to stay in a three house for a couple of hours to spot
animals and you had the opportunity to go on a bush walk. We did both and it
was great and rather scary. We saw the big five there like three times in only two
days. The food was delicious and also included. Every evening everyone was sitting at the
camp fire drinking the delicious South African drink Amarula. And at night, you could hear
the hyena’s calling each other. If you go to South Africa, visit this place!! Umlani Bush Camp is just
one of the private bush camps in the Timbavati national Park. It is definitely
worth all of the money.
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The Last Days
On the 13th of August we drove to our last destination. This was a quick stop because driving to Johannesburg in one day would be a long drive. We stayed at ‘Granny Dot’s County Spot’. A bed and breakfast from two lovely old people. They made us dinner and they had a great pub inside the guesthouse. It wasn’t that luxurious but very nice to be able to take some rest and recover from all the beautiful things that we had seen. They also have two very cute dogs who love attention. The next day was our last one. That day we drove to Johannesburg to fly back to Amsterdam. But we had one more stop to go; The Orlando Towers in Soweto. I always wanted to do a bungeejump since I was little, and I finally got to do it at the place where I had dreamed of. Two 100-meter towers in the biggest township of the world, Soweto. I had no doubt at all and the jump was so cool. My sister and little brother also did the jump after a doubt of around an hour. (Want to know more about this bungeejump? Read this blog). This was an amazing end of an amazing trip. After a long night flight we got home safely. Normal life immediatly started again but we still have the memories we will never forget!!
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