Beautiful drive from Nambiti. Up the road towards Newcastle in the wrong direction for a few miles. Then across to Dundee near Glencoe. Stopped for petrol, saw a secretary bird by the road. Good roads. Then on to Vryheid. Supermarket stop, busy, noisy, people dressed up for a wedding. Denise not keen on supermarket, prefers Woolies. Tim failed to buy spare SD card for camera near second supermarket. Onward, beautiful drive, views of game reserve to North towards Swaziland, stopped for loo in busy town, Louwsburg. Lots going on. Felt very African. Like this
Arrived late afternoon, nice hotel, bigger than we expected, lovely garden with two pools, nice trees etc, adjacent lake with warnings about crocodiles. Apparently there’s a hippo too who sometimes comes to eat the grass in the evenings, on the lake side of a big electric fence. We saw African jacanas and Denise saw a marsh sandpiper.
We have a lovely big room at one end of the hotel with nice views over the garden and the lake and mountains beyond. The bathroom even has a balcony with an outdoor shower on it!
Nice buffet dinner, lots of nice things
Sunday 30th December
Lazy morning because all tired after many game drives. Visited local spa to buy a few things (including chicken on which more below)
Game drive pm in Mzhuze reserve. Nice sightings of lion with two cubs. Cubs looked at us with interest. A lone wildebeest calf was wandering around on the road nearby. We thought something might happen, but after a while we moved on and left then to it.
We saw quite a lot of animals, although the grass was long and the bush quite thick. Fortunately Beki our guide had good eyes and we shared the ride with a South African family who were good at spotting things
We also saw: Western cattle egret, white with yellow top of head, with cattle on the way to the reserve, very common, white winged widow bird, quelea, Martial eagle, Walters eagle, several banded mongoose, scrub hare, tortoise, European bee eater, 3 badelear, southern hornbill and birchalls coucal.
Nice evening meal, main course was a delicious barbecue.
Monday 31st, new years eve
Morning boat trip on Lake Jozini, beautiful scenery. South Africa has been short of rain over the last few years, and we could clearly see how the water level has going down. The lake was created in the 70s to protect the nearby land from flooding. We saw quite a few hippo, a couple of crocodiles, and lots of birds. Jean from the hotel was an informative and amusing guide.
Lazy afternoon, followed by new years eve dinner and party. Nice meal. The usual buffet with additional fancy starters and extra puddings.
The staff had made a big effort to set up all the dinner tables on the grass under the trees. unfortunately around 18 it started raining and carried on drizzling until at least 8. In the end they had to improvise and some people sat on the terraces and a few people sat at tables on the wet grass under umbrellas. At least when it rains here it isn’t cold so it doesn’t matter that much!
Tuesday 1st January 2019!
Tim’s first action of the new year was to make a swift emergency visit to the loo in the small hours of the morning. After one large event and one shorter event, his insides seem to have settled down. Almost certainly this was caused by a roast chicken which we bought from the local supermarket on the 29th and which Tim had for lunch on the 31st. The chicken did smell a bit strange and I shouldn’t have eaten it. Fortunately my insides recovered really quickly and I was able to eat again by lunchtime and eat a full meal in the evening.
Tim has been wondering if his first actions of the new year are an indicator of the sort of year 2019 will turn out to be?!
Checked out this morning and on our way to St Lucia.
Lake Jozini