Hlane

We took off this past weekend for our first solo trek, to Hlane Royal National Park, about 1.5 hrs from Manzini. The drive to the park itself was an adventure. Poor drivers, rough roads, flocks of livestock, and road edges that serve as sidewalks for large crowds of school children made our first swing at driving on the left side of the road (and shifting with the left) an even greater challenge. Within 30 minutes of leaving Manzini, finally feeling slightly comfortable behind the wheel, a pothole reached out onto the road, swallowing my left front tire. For a few tense moments, Graham and I tried to figure out if we'd blown the tire. Within a few seconds, the car responded, beginning to shake violently, and we pulled over. The tire was blown, hubcap thrown onto the side of the highway, and the rim bent in from the blow. I paced the highway, found the hubcap, and we went to work on the switch. For those not familiar with roads out here, there is not really any sort of right-of-way for downed cars or even pedestrians; little clearance was given by the cars and trucks that barreled past at 100-120 km/hr. After about ten tense minutes and a brief search-and-rescue mission for the hubcap, the spare was attached. Not a great start to our driving experience, but still excited to explore Hlane, we pulled back onto the road, and continued.

That hiccup behind us, we continued busting east towards Hlane, finally reaching the gate. We popped in to Ndlovu Camp where we'd be pitching tents to spend the night. The camp sits next to a watering hole, in which 3 Hippos floated while several Impala drank from its banks. We ventured out into the park (definitely pushing our small compacts to their limits on some of the dirt roads) looking for game, and managed to track down a decent selection of game, including warthog, Waterbuck, Nyala, Kudu, Giraffe, and several White Rhinos, a pair of which passed about 15 yards behind our car.

As sunset approached we headed to the watering hole to watch game trickle in. In addition to most of the game we saw on our drive, we also saw Blue Wildebeest and a very showy Ostrich. The highlight was a group of 5 elephants that emerged out of the brush to pass between us and the watering hole, before disappearing again. We had dinner by kerosene latern (the camp has no electricity) with a pair of African Grass Owls watching us from the rafters, drank wine around the campfire, and headed then to bed, scattering Impala as we walked.

The next morning I was awoken by a couple different sounds, one I'm guessing was some type of jackal (dog-like howl, not sure what else would make that noise at Hlane), and a grunting roar that was probably the hippos we had seen earlier at the watering hole. After spending most of the morning watching animals heading to the watering hole, we hopped in a safari truck and took off on a guided tour. Our guide managed to find a herd of elephants rather quickly that included a few younger elephants; a few times our heart rates raised when one of the adults would flare its ears and starting approaching our truck (unfortunately can't upload those videos yet). We continued to scour the park, looking for more big game, coming across our first Zebra for the trip. Finally, we came across a trio of rhinos, and it was time to hike. Our guide shut off the truck, grabbed his "gun" (actually just a stick with a balled end) and led us on foot into the brush for a closer look... while the picture to the right is obstructed by thorn bushes, it does a good job of demonstrating how close we were to these awesome animals (the bush was an arm's reach away). We changed position a few times (including once when a curious animal started walking our way) before the animals started working away from us towards the watering hole. Definitely an awesome experience, crouched in the middle of the thornveld with only about 20 feet seperating me from a White Rhino.

Overall, we had a great time touring Hlane. While the species diversity may be less in comparison to some of the other parks in the region, it is also a lot quieter, with fewer people. In addition, the rhino walk is an experience I'll never forget, and the chance to sit and watch elephants and rhinos stroll past a watering hole as the sun set with only a few others around doesn't happen at the bigger parks.