From Mantenga lodge we travelled 5 hours south, back into South Africa and on to the small town of St Lucia. Again the border was a walk-in/walk-out affair on both sides of the border, although we did have to pass a temperature test as a health check to enter South Africa. There wasn’t anywhere too appealing to stop along the way so we ended up having gingernuts in the car as lunch as we drove.
We had 3 nights here partly so I could meet month end-deadlines while managing to do some tourist activities. St Lucia is famous for its ecotourism options, but mainly for its hippopotami. As we learnt on our boat tour, hippos are territorial and return to the same areas repeatedly. So when the town was established the hippos continued to roam through the streets at night eating grass. We didn’t see any ourselves, but they are reportedly there on a regular basis. There are plenty of signs around the town centre warning people to keep their distance.
We did a estuary boat trip to see hippos. It was a very windy day and the hippos had taken shelter in the reeds, so we didn’t have any really good sightings of them on the shores. We did see plenty in the water. So many. On the tour we learned that they walk on the river bottom and when it is too deep they don’t swim. Instead they hold their breath and continue walking on the river bottom. Baby hippos drink mothers milk under water and really do most things in or under the water, with the exception of eating.
We were lucky enough to see a couple of Nile Crocodiles on the boat trip. While they were only a couple of metres long and quite slight – you still wouldn’t want to meet them in the water!
The area around St Lucia – The iSimangaliso Wetland Park – was listed as South Africa’s first World Heritage Site. We took a drive in the park and up to Cape Vidal beach.
While we didn’t see any Hippo roaming the town, there were plenty of warthog just wandering about, eating grass.
We finished our time in KwaZulu-Natal with 2 days in uMhlanga, just north of Durban. Andrew had friends there from his London days. He and Jo had visited them in Durban on the way back from London to New Zealand in 1979. So the return after 45 years was quite special. Some relics from the past were on found and Andrew has to find his half of the 1 pound note from that time when he gets back to NZ.
When we said we were going to Durban we only got bad reactions. Durban really has a bad reputation as an unsafe city and everyone had a horror story. We went into Durban one morning only and had walk along the beach promenade. That is considered one of the tourist safe areas and it was a lovely open area to walk along. In the past when Durban was a prime sea-side destination this area had all the expensive hotels looking over the white beaches and the surf. Our hosts were surprised how good it was looking. There have been problems with people drinking, sleeping , littering etc in that area- but none of that for us.
They took as through the inner city, where the old classic department stores used to be. Now it can be described as a city with a lot more mayhem. It wasn’t too bad, but it was slightly chaotic and we did have the car doors locked on entering. But amongst the chaos, the old buildings built in traditional British style, like the court house or the civic building remained, solid, elegant and a symbol of times gone by.
The big businesses and professional firms have moved out of Durban city centre and mainly gone north, near where we staying. That area was vibrant with shops, restaurants and walking paths.
We were also lucky to see from the apartment many pods of dolphins frolicking in the water. Possibly we saw some of the sardine run bait balls – but maybe they were just huge schools of other small fish – but I have decided to deem them sardines. The sardine run is an annual event where billions of sardines move up the coast in July or august following the warmer water. They are followed by birds and dolphins and sharks and other predators on a feeding tour. There were still sardines being pulled up on the beaches not far south from where we were the weekend before – so lets say they were part of that.
