15th Skukuza to Imfolozi
We were up very early this morning as I wanted to be amongst the first out the gate due to the long drive ahead of us.
We stopped for pics of a hyena feeding its overgrown baby just outside Skukuza gate, but never stopped again for pics as we never found any dogs or cats, which is probably all I would have stopped for.
Things got a little faulty at the Swazi border as some official took a liking to Hawkeyes and decided to try his luck at charming and then even offered 2 four legged Cows for her, which amused me no end, but Hawkeyes was horrified when I attempted to negotiate for more cows.
We eventually arrived at Memorial Gate Hluhluwe just before 2pm and the Cow went to get us in, but then returned 10 minutes later moaning big time about some rude official that she had argued with, which must have been serious as the Cow has a massive tolerance level for incompetence. Luckily I never went.
We decided to just cruise down the tar all the way to Mpila camp and stopped a few times for the general locals.
We scored a luck when booking in and got our favourite 5 sleeper unit, so unpacked and parked off, but then Hawkeyes started hassling for our traditional viewpoint 17 family pic and I was keen to check out Bhejane hide, so we cruised out again.
While on the viewpoint another car arrived with some foreigners and they also got out, however I had to inform them of an ellie which had popped up in the reeds about 30m from the viewpoint as they seemed oblivious of it, so they huddled close to their car.
We were the only people at Bhejane hide, so it was peaceful, however the animals weren’t around and we didn’t have the time to wait.
While on the way back to camp we found a boon gang on patrol and a hoopoe for the Cow, but then I had to concentrate as the dirt roads were stuffed and more like a 4x4 course. People in sedans were turning around and taking other routes as it was so bad. In my opinion this is just plan slackness and we have never seen the dirt roads this bad in more than 20 trips to Imfolozi.
To be continued