Hlehluwe/Imfolozi Park (near St. Lucia)

  St. Lucia, South Africa
Thursday, January 12, 2006

Hello Everyone,

Long time no see. We have been in some remote parts with little or very poor internet connection. Otherwise known as dial up, ughhhh.

After spending days in the rain in St. Lucia, we decided we must move on. Which is unfortunate because we didn't get to see all the wonderful stuff St. Lucia had to offer. Hopefully we will get back here again someday.

We were lucky, the day we checked out turned out to be a break in the rain. We drove onward to a highly recommmended park in this area of South Africa. It is now two parks combined into one. Hluhluwe/Imfolozi. It was really beautiful scenery, quite diverse as you drive through the park. This was the first time we saw landscape that resembled the savanna areas of the serengeti.



We saw many impala, worthogs, giraffe, elephant, vervet monkeys, kudu, and nyala. We also saw many species of birds, some really large ones, hawks, eagles, etc.

Impala and a Hammerhead bird


We got our fill of dung beetle watching here. Another fascinating creature. The poor things roll their ball with so much effort just to have it roll back further then where they started sometimes, lol!

The highlight of this park though was the rhinos. All white rhinos in south africa apparently can be traced back to this park, they were almost extinct and only a few remained here. We ran into our first siting with surprise. Jack was looking elsewhere as he was driving down the dirt roadway as I suddenly turned to him with excitment. I warned him he might want to stop the car before he ran right into a mother and baby rhino right on the road infront of us. We both just stared in amazement. The mother turned here body and head and was now pointed directly at the car. We just had to sit and wait for them to move off the roadway. They have been known to charge cars. The fact that she had a baby made it more likely. This was fine with us, we had all the time in the world to just sit and enjoy watching them. They are so fascinating. Such prehistoric looking creatures.



After 9 hours of driving thru the park and sunset soon approaching we decided it was time to get going. We ended up seeing over 20 rhinos throughout the park, it was nice to know so many were in existance here. We finished up with some beautiful pictures of the sunset and watched the elephants wander into the twilight.





We ended up not timing this day very well. We exited through another part of the park. No one had informed us how bad the road was. It was dirt and full of rocks and potholes. We ended up driving for about an hour in the dark, in a backwoods area. All we kept thinking was please do not get a flat tire here!

We finally arrived in a very industrial type city called Ulundi. Our first welcome to the city was a man lying half into the highway lane. We weren't sure if he was dead or alive, but there were several people and a police car around him. We had no idea where we were, and our lonely planet book only had one suggestion for sleeping. It was an expensive hotel, the only one in town I guess. We decided to drive around for a bit and found a guesthouse. It turned out to be quite nice. We checked in and then went back out to try and find something to eat, it was getting quite late, but we were starving. On the way back into the city we had to pass the scene of the man again. Everyone was gone, but he had been moved to behind a curb on the highway. I assume he was just passed out.

We found some food and then went back to the guesthouse. It had to be one of the hottest rooms we had to sleep in yet. At 2am I couldn't take it anymore, I looked over to see Jack basically passed out with his mouth wide open, lol. I looked across the room where we had thrown the thick blanket off the bed to see something slightly revealed behind it. Yes we had been trying to sleep while a fan laid buried underneath the blanket on the floor. I of course blamed Jack who had been the one to throw the blanket on it, lol!

See you soon