Mike's Moz Blog: Trip to Swaziland

Swaziland Flag

In a change from our usual beach trips we went to stay in the Hlane National Park in Swaziland just under two hours drive from Maputo. We stayed in Ndlovu camp in a quaint self catering round stone hut or rondavel. Our hut was really close to a watering hole frequented by loads of Rhinos which were the size of small trucks.

The camp has no electricity so the lighting is provided by candles and paraffin lamps which the staff came round and light in the evenings. The hut was pretty basic but had everything we needed and was really quite romantic. It even had a gas powered fridge. There was an outside seating and barbecue area where we could sit and watch the Rhinos at the waterhole.

A short drive away from the camp was another watering hole. A very peaceful spot with a picnic area that we spent a good few hours at wildlife watching. The picnic area had a warning sign about not going over the small surrounding wall because of crocodiles. Jane was saying she wished we could see one when she suddenly realised that there had been two of them across the watering hole the entire time we had been there - we just hadn't spotted them.

We went on an evening safari drive seeing Giraffes and Elephants which was good fun. We also saw some Lions but these were kept in a large enclosure so we kind of thought these were not the real deal. Even though the enclosure was several acres and we were told the lions hunted the impala in the enclosure we suspected that they were actually fed. A real highlight though was a bush walk and bird watching trip with one of the local guides which was excellent. He really knew his stuff and was teaching us how to identify the birds we saw and then challenging us to correctly identify and find them in his bird book. Somehow he managed to spot an owl deep in the bushes. Even when he was explaining exactly where it was I had trouble finding it. The park had enormous cacti (Euphorbia) which we were told the bushmen made poison for their arrows from.

The trip was slightly marred because I wasn't feeling too well. I didn't know it at the time but I had tick fever picked up from a tick bite at the dog kennels. However overall it was a fantastic trip and we will definitely be going back to Swaziland at some time.