To the Hluweluwe Game Preserve

October 25, 2008

Travelled from Pietermaritzburg up th the Hluweluwe Game preserve, Africa's oldest game park.

En route we stopped at a beach town and saw the Indian Ocean. Huge surf! I decided that 15 minutes was enough ocean for anybody, so we loaded up the little sunshine bus and carried on up the coast towards the game park.

Stopped for lunch at Mtubatuba. None of the local eating establishments looked like they would deliver what we were hoping for in terms of lunch. So we stopped elsewhere for snacks and carried on up the road and checked in at the park and ate lunch there.

On the 27 km trail from the park gate to our lodge, we encountered a pair of rhino blocking the road, one of which was clearly agitated, and both together equaled the size of the sunshine bus. I exited the vehicle, wrestled both giant animals to the ground, pushed the carcasses off the road and proceeded calmly to the lodge.

At 5 pm we found ourselves in the back of a canopied bakkie doing the movie-style game drive. All that was missing were rifles and pith helmets.

We saw many animals, were charged by elephants (I quickly pushed Shelley between myself and them, so not to worry!)

But no cats! (#1 on all our lists).

We had the road blocked by a bull elephant, but after 45 minutes at a standstill, some dude in a big land rover chased him out of the way. It was very cold and some people couldn't hold it and had to jump from the truck and risk the wild life in order to relieve personal internal pressures. 

Had dinner in the lodge and crashed as early as possible as we had a 5:00 am game drive on Sunday morning.