Day 5 - Swaziland

We had a lie in this morning, we got woken up at 0600! We packed up, put the tents down, had breakfast and then we were off to Swaziland. 

The drive from Kruger to Swaziland was relatively full of agricultural landscape with the odd patch of brush. All looking dead but we have been told that the minute the first rain comes, all of the colour will come back to the landscape. 

We crossed a bridge about 30 minutes into our drive and pulled over to our first glance of crocodiles and hippos basking in the morning sun. The hippos were quite a way away but with the zoom lens (used as binoculars as much as anything else) I could see them popping their heads of the water and play fighting with each other. The crocodiles were huge, even as far away as we were it was obvious that they were some big reptiles. We watched a group of Water Bucks wandering about on an inner island and then all held our breaths when they decided to cross the river to get to the other side. We could see crocodiles heading in their direction so in true tourist style (I think the sun has got to our heads) we were waving our arms about shouting “No!” at these poor deers who clearly had no idea what these people were doing. Luckily after one has waded into the water, he decided against it and came back to the island. They were all in one piece when we left...

We drove over a bridge over a cluster of water and islands and there was a helicopter hovering low down at the same level as the bridge. We couldn’t stop but as we slowly drove past we could see an elephant being guided by this helicopter back into brush, his ears flapping in the wind from the helicopter. We were told that the Helicopter were park rangers who were in charge of keeping the wild animals away from the towns nearby. 

We crossed over into Swaziland around midday, going through the border patrol hut and getting our passport stamped. The scenery then changed to sugar cane fields with people control burning the crop to rejuvenate it for the next round. We passed towns with tiny thatched roofs, corrugated sides and many many empty, half falling down / half built houses. 

We finally made it to Hlane National Park at around 1o'clock. We had a chance to shower (the water was heated by wood burner and was wonderfully warm) and then we pottered down to the waterhole which sat right on the edge of the campsite. There we sat, drink in hand watched 7 huge wild rhino lolling about in the mud no further than 20 metres away from us with only a mildly electric fence between us (we know this because our guide Tshepo showed us by touching it accidentally and then gave the most girly shriek which caused us hours of amusement that evening). As I sat there on my own I was amazed when a huge bull elephant suddenly came plodding round the corner, a staff member ran straight down to me and told me to get up and move back, if the elephant was to charge then a tiny fence was not going to stop him! I watched him walk silently past the rhino and to the other side of the watering hole where he drank some water and then walked out of sight. We saw elephant, rhino, hippo and babies within arms distance of our tent. Who could ask for anything more?!

We went on one final game drive at about 4ish, it wasn’t part of the itinerary but they offered it to us and having not yet seen any big cats we jumped at the chance! We headed off (complimentary beers in hand) into three separate enclosures -1) Rhino and Elephants 2) Giraffes and Antelopes and 3) Lions and Elephants. We asked why they separated the animals and were told that due to the large amounts of poaching that has happened recently, keeping the rhino in a small separate enclosure was easier to protect from poachers. 

We continued on our drive through thick brush, seeing rhino and elephants as we went. We joked that having seen so many over the last few days that now seeing an elephant was equivalent to a fox in the UK. We entered the lion enclosure and drove around for a little. We have never been so silent! Finally we spotted another 4x4 truck pulled into a deep thicket, we followed and there right in front of us were 5 lions deep in the middle of a feed. We must have stayed there for almost an hour watching them eat and interact with each other with headlamps and the odd roar. Every so often one would walk past our truck, looking at us as they went. At times if felt like they were staring straight at me. We were so lucky and I actually felt quite emotional thinking that I might never be able to see lions in their natural habitat again. 500 pictures later (no joke), we headed back to camp and sat down to a wonderful bbq and a few beers regaling the story’s of close encounter with one of Africa’s most incredible creatures.