Safari on a Budget

We initially flew to Johannesburg, the capital of South Africa and picked up our hire car at the airport before a massive 370 mile drive straight after an 11 hour flight, but we thought wed just get it over and done with in one go. Taking most of the day, around 8 hours we arrived at St Lucia, a small town on the west coast of South Africa, pretty close to the Mozambique border. We had chosen St Lucia as it was near the Hluhluwe–IMfolozi Park where we had planned our budget Safari. We had pre-booked a self catering apartment at the Flamingo lodge apartments for 5 nights and pretty much went to bed once we had booked in. The following morning we had planned a day off to recover from the flight and drive, however, on advice from the reception at our apartment we decided to visit the ISimangaliso wetland park which was literally just down the road, the receptionist also warned us about the Hippos wandering around the town at night!

Whoever said that you cant do a safari on the cheap has never been to iSimangaliso wetland park. The Park is said to be one of the outstanding natural wetland and coastal sites of Africa. It covers an area of 239,566 ha that include a wide range of pristine marine, coastal, wetland, estuarine, and terrestrial environments which are beautiful and basically unmodified by people. These include coral reefs, long sandy beaches, coastal dunes, lake systems, swamps, and extensive reed and papyrus wetlands, providing critical habitat for a wide range of species. The wildlife in the park is spectacular and totally unexpected for an entrance fee of under £5pp. The drive from the Maphelane gate to Cape Vidal takes you around 20 miles through the south of the park and through various different habitats, you can also stop at different viewpoints along the way and there are various side routes or small circular routes that take you past ponds or to a beach or hide. There is a huge amount of animal life in the park, I think the only thing we didn't see in the one day were and large cats, although they are said to be there.

That evening we couldn't help but go out and have a look around for hippos, and too our amazement they are just wandering around the town! As the town is so close to the wetland apparently the hippos have learned that the lawns and plants in the gardens are quite succulent so each evening they come out of the water and wander the streets trimming the residents lawns. We made sure to keep our distance as hippos are considered one of the most dangerous animals in Africa.

The following two days we had booked two full day safaris with Heritage tours and Safaris. Each day they picked us up at our accommodation before dawn and took us in an open top game drive jeep (which was freezing at 5:00am) and took us to the Hluhluwe and Imfolozi park for a dawn start. The days consisted of touring the park taking in the sights and marvelling at the amount of animal life we saw. Each Jeep gets a private guide who is really informative about the park, the animals and where to find them. All the guides carry walkie talkies so that if they see anything interesting in the park they can let other groups  know. Your day also includes breakfast, lunch, refreshments and stops at different lookouts and hides for closer encounters with some of the animals. All this for around £55 per person per day! Hluhluwe–Imfolozi Park is the oldest proclaimed nature reserve in the whole of Africa. It consists of 960 km² of hilly wilderness and is known for its rich wildlife and conservation efforts. Operated by the Ezemvelo KZN Wildlife, the park is the only state-run park in KwaZulu-Natal where each of the big five game animals can be found. Also thanks to conservation efforts, the park now has one of the largest populations of White rhinos anywhere in the world, although even with the parks efforts, this population still remains severely threatened, and there is still the poaching of hundreds of rhinos every year in the park.

Whilst in the park we were lucky enough to see 4 of the big 5, but we didn't manage to spot any leopards. There were large herds of elephant as well as large lone bull elephants, lots of giraffe and zebra, large herds of wildebeest, boar, deer, and rhino seemed to be everywhere. We also saw a pride of lions including the cubs and were luck enough to see lions eating a buffalo they had killed!

Following the safari days we decided to explore the area around St Lucia. We had a look around the town before following the road around to the St Lucia estuary and Ingwe beach. You had to be careful around the estuary area as there were plenty of crocodiles sunning themselves in the dunes and mangrove, some quite well hidden, and we decided not to go into the water for the same reason, there were eyes watching your every move for the water!

Our final day in St Lucia was spent exploring the river area and taking the hippo boat cruise. The cruise is a really good way to get up close to the hippos in the river. Again the cruise was reasonably priced at around £12 pp and consisted of what should be described as a motorised pontoon that takes around two hours to cruise up and back down the river, coming close to the bank in places to give you a better look the odd basking crocodile, or maybe a sunburn hippo or even an unusual bird perching near the river bank. The sunburned hippos were quite comical, gathered in quite large numbers on the river bank or suddenly bobbing up from the river near the pontoon, but the pontoon gave us a really close view of what is quite a dangerous animal and allowed you us get some great pictures

Finally we checked out of the Flamingo Lodge and drove the 100 miles or so right around the Isimangaliso Wetland Park up to the Triton Dive Lodge near Sodwana Bay, Mbazwana as we had booked a dive package there that included our accommodation.