We left the Tillbury's after a one night stay and headed to Anthony's brothers house in Pietermaritzberg. Oli was very excited to see us as he'd moved a few months back and only had one visit to Cape Town since. Again it was only an overnight stay but a great way to break up some of the driving. Didn't do anything interesting in Maritzberg but was lovely to see Oli and Erika (his GF).
The morning we left we knew it was going to be one of the more interesting drives north as we were about to drive into some of the REAL african bush and see some truly amazing sights. Slowly the landscape changed and we started seeing Rondavel huts with reed roofs and more livestock then you can imagine! This was to be a continuous trend throughout the rest of our trip as the pictures will show. We were entering Zululand, with the first language being of course, Zulu.
When tarred roads give way to dirt roads it really slows down your progress. Anything can get in the way, pot holes mainly, but also a million and one cows. Some pot holes are big enough to fit a goat inside and we were just praying that the rains hadn't been to heavy up this way which fill the holes and make them harder to see or make our decisions harder as to drive around them or drive through them. Mostly, we drove around. As well, Africa is still a developing country even in the most of rural areas and plenty of road works slowed us down as they would only have one way traffic that switches direction every 20mins or so. You were lucky if you came accross a road works that was currently heading your direction!
Sand was also an issue, weather depending, because we had decided to take the Mercedes stationwagon instead of borrowing a small truck (like i wanted to!) and we were heavily loaded with a month's worth of camping gear, food and our suitcases. Some places were fairly trecherous and involved a little bit of fish tailing in deep sand or "off roading" on the side of the road. Haha, as if our car could "off road".
One of the many cows we had to stop for, they move at thier own pace and if you honk your horn at them then they just stare at you....
The view from my seat down the picturesque road to Mapelane Nature Reserve
Our first camping destination was Mapelane Nature Reserve on the east coast. We were booked in for three nights camping and no one in Ant's family had ever been here before, surprising since they've been to almost every other reserve in SA. It was a long drive off the tarred roads and had it's own private road leading to the entrance gate. This reserve doesn't have any big game in it but it situated at a river mouth that runs into the ocean. This is the Indian ocean as well so that meant warm seas to swim in and a chance to do some snorkeling (we brought too much dive gear...).
Mapelane, in it's day, was a thriving reserve that was busy all year round because it was THE fishing spot for ocean game fish. There's a wonderful spot about 2kms down the beach with a rock shelf that fishermen can use during low or high tide. However, in the last few years some of the rules have changed because of conservation efforts. You can now no longer drive your 4x4 on the beach because of the negative impact on the wildlife and the attempt at Dune reconstruction. Ever since the rules have changed Mapelane is now more a family reserve for walking on the beach, doing nature trail walks and has wonderful Birding opportunities.
Anthony took a picture of me clearing a log out of the road to Mapelane, no way we could've drove over it OR around it haha
Me taking a picture of Ant as we're driving down the private road, actually only going about 20kms/hr but it looks pretty spiffy eh?
Some animals that the reserve has lots of are the elusive Bush Buck, Red Duiker, and Long Tailed Bush Babies. It's funny that in the brochure they say they're quite elusive but in actual fact these animals have no natural predators in this reserve and so they flourish and really were everywhere!
This picture was taken right out of Ant's window, a male bush buck with lots of flies on him
This is the entrance gate to Maphelane with a female bush buck
Our campsite with more bush buck wandering around, not too timid which is rare
View from the Top: This is a viewpoint up a hill from the campsite, you can see the river on the left which leads out to the ocean just left of my head. On that small island we saw a crocodile, the only one in three days. It was raining and sunny at the same time, hence my cover up
Please refer to the next blog for lots'o'pics from Mapelane!
Our campsite with more bush buck wandering around, not too timid which is rare
No comments:
Post a Comment