Highlights
11 December 2014 | South Africa
Picture: Liam on roller furling while motoring into False Bay, heading for Simon's Town
There are two absolute high points of our time in Richards Bay. The first was reuniting with our friends Jacolette and Joop with their 3 children Johannes, Dirk and Lelei. They are fantastically easy going, helpful and boundlessly generous!
The second highlight was meeting the crew of s/v Sea Shoes; Lawrence, Anne and Lorecan, whose welcome to this country was superb!
Two other absolute highlights of our time so far in South Africa are the trips into the game parks: iSimangaliso and iMfolozi, and our 6 day trip to the Wild Coast.
I'm going to take a short-cut on descriptions here and let the pictures do the talking in the Photo Gallery.
iMfolozi Game Reserve and iSimangaliso Wetland Reserve
iMfolozi is situated in central Zululand over 960 square km of hilly terrain. It is the oldest proclaimed nature reserve which has the 'big five' game animals. The 'big five' are: leopard, lion, Cape Buffalo, elephant and rhinoceros (black/hook-lipped and white/square-lipped).
iSimangaliso
iSimangaliso is a world heritage site due to its rich biodiversity. It has, in a relatively small area, a huge diversity in fauna and flora. What makes this park different from the rest is that it has Lake St. Lucia, an estuary, which has a huge amount of unique ecosystems. This park has about 1200 Nile crocodiles and 800 hippopotami and in 2013, lions were reintroduced.
We were ready for an adventure and a bit of break from Gromit, so, with David, Peggy from Rhythm, their daughter Philippa and her husband Joey, we rented a house in a quaint little town of St. Lucia about an hour north of Richards Bay. We spent a whole day driving through the wetland park and then a whole day driving through iMfolozi. It was so great! We spotted so many animals that by the end of the day, we started saying, ' oh look, another impala', or, 'more warthogs'!
Our favourites were the elephants, the zebras, the lions and the lone giraffe we saw just as we were heading out of the park. We were afraid that wouldn't see a giraffe, but we were lucky! The rhinos with their incredibly long horns were fantastic and to have seen a mama with her baby was really special.
I've posted lots of animal pictures - maybe too many.....it was so hard to decide!!!!..............in a Photo Album in the Photo Gallery.
Wild Coast album coming soon......