IT was a great blood-red orb rising over the hills on the other side of the valley, to be reflected below us in the scant waters of the Black Umfolozi – it was Shaka’s moon for sure.
We were in the Hluhluwe-iMfolozi Game Reserve in the heart of Zululand, in the country allegedly declared by the great King Shaka some 200 years ago as his personal hunting reserve.
Today it is the pride of KwaZulu-Natal, but not as a royal hunting reserve, rather as one of the finest game reserves in southern Africa.
We were in Mpila Camp over looking the Black Umfolozi, spending a few days rejuvenating our souls. It was good. We saw most of the usual things, like herds of impala, some wonderful kudu, blue wildebeest, zebra, giraffe, buffalo, warthog, baboons, hyaena (more later) and of course elephant and rhino.
Is it just me, or is there now a natural sadness in seeing an elephant or a rhino out there? I could not help but wonder if this might be the last time that I experienced either of these magnificent creatures in their natural habitat.
We’re losing up to 30,000 elephants a year in Africa and hundreds of rhino, all to poaching and all because of human greed and stupidity. It’s a point to ponder.
The reserve is not looking good. They are in desperate need of rain, there are vast areas where the vegetation cover has disappeared altogether, leaving just red dirt, and to make matters worse (or so it seemed to us) large stretches of the reserve have been burnt (there were still fires to be seen at night last week).
Oddly enough, despite the drought and the burn, the wildlife is looking pretty good. Nothing is fat (except the zebra and they always seem to be fat), but we saw very little in the way of rib cages in evidence. In fact, I would say the wildlife was looking good all round.
The only animal that was looking distinctly leaner than their lower South Coast cousins were the vervet monkeys in the camp, but more of them another time.
A travel advisory: the road from here to Durban is excellent, as we all know, but from Durban to Mtubatuba, where one turns off to Hluhluwe-iMfolozi, it is not a Sunday afternoon doddle.
The road is good, but then it should be as there are three toll plazas totally R53.50c in tolls, but the traffic (at least for us Slow Coasters) is extremely heavy – mainly trucks, many of which tend to head off at Richard’s Bay.
And on the subject of roads, the dirt roads in the Hluhluwe-iMfolozi Game Reserve are good, but the tarred roads are a disgrace. At least they made us feel at home.
Something else worth remembering – there is no diesel in the reserve and at Mpila Camp the water is not for drinking (there is water available, at a price, in the camp shop). Having said that, Mpila Camp was great, after all, where else would we have seen Shaka’s moon? Cheers!
