I AM sure the big cat was waiting to welcome me back to one of my very favourite places.
uMkhuze Game Reserve, now part of iSimangaliso Wetland Park, is just that kind of park, a place of mystery and magic where wonders can and do happen, a place where big cats might well be waiting to greet us.
Bill and I have a long and happy acquaintance with this wondrous piece of wilderness.
Recently we visited the northern reaches of our beautiful KwaZulu-Natal in pursuit of a quest we have set ourselves for this year.
We want to earn ourselves parkrun tourist status by competing parkruns at 20 different venues in South Africa.
At the end of last year, Bill had clocked up his eighth and I, my seventh different parkrun at Umdoni, so we would need to find 13 new ones to tackle to achieve our goal by the end of 2017.
It is a great excuse to see more of our beautiful country and that is what the parkrun tourist idea is all about.
Early in the new year we tackled Amanzimtoti parkrun, with its daunting 2km beach section, and then the scenic parkrun in Richards Bay.
At the end of January we travelled to Gauteng and completed the last-ever Voortrekker monument parkrun, along with some 2 000 other parkrunners.
One of the more remote parkruns in our province is the Phongola parkrun and it would be nice to have this one on our parkrun CVs so we decided to make a weekend excursion out of ticking off this location.
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As a special treat we combined our visit to Phongola with a two-night stay at uMkhuze, after which we did the run on Saturday morning. We then drove to Richards Bay via the iSimangaliso Western Shores to spend the Saturday night with our son and his family on their yacht.
I was particularly looking forward to spending time in uMkhuze, a place that always touches my soul.
There is never a bad time to visit this varied and interesting reserve but it seems to be in something of a rain shadow and is often dry and thirsty.
We’d heard many reports that it had been particularly hard hit by a recent, terrible drought that had left our province reeling last year but much-needed summer rains were starting to fall generously on KwaZulu-Natal so we were hoping that uMkhuze was receiving its share of Mother Nature’s watery bounty.
It was mid-morning by the time we reached Ophansi gate. We stopped the car at the boom and Bill went inside the gatehouse to complete the paper work. I was waiting for him in our vehicle, just staring into space, when a movement caught my eye.
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Crossing the road just a stone’s throw away from the boom was a magnificent cheetah. I didn’t even have time to call out to Bill before it reached the other side of the road and melted in the surrounding bushes. What a wonderful start to our uMkhuze visit.
Unfortunately, the game viewing didn’t live up to the early promise but we didn’t mind because the reason for this way the long, green grass.
Our beloved uMkhuze had been richly blessed with rain and the resulting lush vegetation made game viewing a little difficult. There was water everywhere, too, so the animals didn’t have to depend on the water holes to drink.
During drier times these water holes are constantly visited by a wide assortment of game but after good rains the animals disperse, keeping away from them and using the more hidden puddles and pans as mud wallows and water sources.
Considering how desperately the rain had been needed we didn’t mind not seeing too much game. We were just so overjoyed to see the park looking more summery and beautiful than it had for a long time.
After entering the park we headed straight to Nsumo Pan, where we stopped for a late breakfast. Once again, we were thrilled to see a transformation the recent rains had wrought.
We’d heard stories of how the pan had been reduced to a puddle and how distressed the resident hippos had been. It was wonderful to see the stretch of water restored to its usual glorious self, with pods of happy hippos wallowing in the depths.
If the game watching was a little disappointing the birding more than made up for it. With more than 400 species recorded in the park uMkhuze is one of South Africa’s premier birding destinations and the bird watching is always excellent.
This time round it was absolutely amazing, even by uMkhuze’s exacting standards. Hundreds of water birds, including flocks of pelicans, had returned to the rejuvenated pan and the two hides at the water’s edge offered non-stop water bird action.
That wasn’t all. Looking inland from the entrance to the hides was just as exciting. There were so many different species flying round the bushy areas surrounding the pan. I haven’t enjoyed such exciting birding for a long time.
We drove slowly along a meandering route to the handsome, recently revamped KuMasinga hide, but there was not much action to watch so we didn’t stay long.
Next stop was Mantuma main camp where we booked in then we drove to the lovely camping area near eShopi gate. Over the years we have watched it being transformed from a basic, rather dusty camp into a green and very pleasant space to set up a tent, the trees planted some years ago now offering plenty of welcome shade.
After setting up camp, we did a short game drive then stopped for a sundowner at the nearby picnic spot.We spent almost all of the next day exploring the park and revisiting our favourite places, stopping half way to enjoy lunch and some more quality birding under one of the giant fever trees on the bank of Nsumo Pan.
Throughout the park the birding was amazing so progress was very slow for most of the time. One of the reasons uMkhuze has such a rich bird life, of course, is its incredibly varied scenery of bushveld, rolling grassy plains, acacia savannah, sand forest and magnificent fever and fig tree forests, all of this scenic beauty set off by the stunning backdrop of the blue Lebombo mountains.
After a busy day and a quick swim at main camp we were back at our tent in time for another relaxing evening in the pretty campsite, then it was off to bed for us as we would be up early to reach Phongola in time for the parkrun start at 7am.
Sitting around the braai fire that evening I felt utterly and absolutely at peace with the world. It is a feeling I rarely experience outside an earthly paradise like wild and beautiful uMkhuze.
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