Kwa Zulu Safaris

Kwa Zulu Natal Safari Area

PHINDA RESOURCE RESERVE

This private reserve is contiguous with Mkhuze; it therefore shares the region’s five ecosystems and the impressive bird life they sustain. It was an admirable feat, taking extensive effort, to restore it to its original wilderness, since the land was once completely given over to cultivation, and its Zulu name reflects this – phinda means ‘the return’. Its acacia savannah is home to all of the Big Five, and guests at its four luxury lodges are treated to expertly guided bush walks, birding safaris and dawn or sunset boat cruises on the Mzinene River. With parcels of fever trees, ilala palms, a flood plain, the Mziki Marsh and the southernmost tip of the rocky Lebombo mountains protruding into the reserve, Phinda offers much contrast. Its prized vegetational feature is its 100km2 (37 sq miles) of sand forest – the largest private stand in the country. The best of Phinda’s magic, perhaps, lies in its ultraluxury lodges – notably Forest Lodge, set in the sand forest. Glass-walled chalets raised off the forest floor seem to ‘float’ among the torchwood trees, permitting the secrets of the wilderness to filter in.

MKHUZE GAME RESERVE

Proclaimed in 1912, this reserve has its fair share of wildlife (three of the Big Five – elephant, black rhino and leopard) but it is more highly revered for its wealth of birds. Besides many of the species visible in the Greater Wetland Park, there’s a chance of glimpsing special birds such as Pel’s Fishing Owl or Heuglin’s and Bearded Robin. The Mkuze River, after cutting through the Lebombo mountains, twists and turns on itself, containing the reserve’s northern border. Meandering up from the south is the uMsunduzi River which, together with the Mkuze, feeds a network of swamps and pans – a feature of the park. Generally a flat coastal plain, its tangled wild bushveld is dominated by giant Sycamore Figs (Ficus sycomorus) along the rivers, and the pans are lined with Fever Trees (Acacia xanthophloea), their sallow hue glowing eerily in early evening light. Two elevated hides in particular, Nsumo and Nhlonhlela, are superb perches from which to spy on the bird life. At Nsumo Pan, prettily decorated with water lilies, the water surface is regularly disturbed by the emerging ears and nostrils of snorting hippos or the menacing snout and yellowed eyes of a crocodile surveying its terrain. Nsumo has also, for many years, been the breeding site of Pink-backed Pelicans – relatively rare in South Africa. Mkhuze’s elephant were reintroduced after they were once exterminated in the old Natal by European hunters. A walk through the sycamore fig forest, with its massive buttressed trunks and great spreading canopies cheek-by-jowl with sulphur-like fever trees, will have you entertained by the echoing cry-baby calls of the Trumpeter Hornbill. Look out for its deep green and white plumage and the large casque on its bill. You might also be assailed by the sweet musky scent of fermenting figs.

NDUMO GAME RESERVE

The low-lying coastal plain of Ndumo attaches to the Usutu River in the north and is hedged in by the Lebombo foothills to the west. Although Ndumo has the grasslands, sycamore fig forests, and fever trees of Tembe, the most striking aspect of its veld is what’s known as ‘mahemane’ bush – almost impenetrable thickets of acacia and fleshy euphorbias. Again, this is rhino country – no elephant or lion – and the numbers of hippo, and especially crocodiles, are enormous. The pans usually bristle with the prehistoric-looking, sawtooth profiles of crocs lurking evilly on the shores and soaking up the sun. Joining the crocodiles as the park’s predatory complement is the spotted hyena. Ndumo is more reverentially discussed, though, in terms of its spectacular parade of feathered creatures. It is said to sustain 85% of Maputaland’s bird species. The Nyamithi Pan is a sure-fire winner for both bird and wildlife watching, and its setting, with a column of luminous waxy fever trees marching along its edge, is positively bewitching. Pel’s Fishing Owl, Grey-hooded Kingfisher, Heuglin’s Robin and the Stierling’s Barred Warbler, with its unusual white chest markings of black bars smudged across its entire chest, are names that don’t crop up too often.

HLUHLUWEI-MFOLOZI NATIONAL PARK

This part of KwaZulu-Natal is infused with centuries of history that span early waves of tribal immigration from the north, inevitable clashes for supremacy, and the explosive battles ensuing as a result. The Hluhluwei-Mfolozi National Park therefore displays a historical richness that is absent in many other reserves. Indeed it is, together with Lake St Lucia, Africa’s oldest established conservation area. Proclaimed in 1895 to protect white rhino from the very serious threat of extinction, the park’s orbit was at one time the hunting ground of Mthethwa king Dingiswayo and, later, the famous Zulu king Shaka. Evidence of Zulu presence in the park can be seen in grinding stones – large indented boulders carrying smoothly eroded ‘roller’ stones – and enormous depressions dug out of open grassland zones that reportedly served as Shaka’s game pits. In earlier days wildlife would be driven into these areas and shot to celebrate a battle victory.

Seat of the mighty Zulu
The area’s earliest migrants, the Lala people, who arrived in the 15th century, are believed to have come from the west coast of Africa. Thereafter, from the mid-16th century to the early 19th century, various groups belonging to the northern Nguni peoples migrated to the area: the Zulu clan west of today’s iMfolozi border and south of the White iMfolozi River, the Ndwandwe clan along the north bank of the Black iMfolozi, and the Mthethwa between the two rivers. Rivalry and the struggle for supremacy across the decades culminated in the powerful Zulu nation, presided over by Shaka in 1819. After Shaka’s death, during the reign of his half-brother, Mpande, hordes of white hunters pervaded the region following 1840, spurred on by the accounts of bountiful wildlife by early hunter-explorers like Frederick Courtney Selous. The marksmanship of both Zulu royalty and avaricious European hunters saw to it that, as the 20th century was ready to be ushered in, many wild animal species were already on the verge of extinction. Reports give the last sighting of an elephant (prolific up to 1850) somewhere around 1890, white rhino were believed to not even make up 20 in number, and a poacher allegedly struck the last lion down in 1915. It was the volume of public outcry in 1894 – in response to the shooting of six white rhino where the two iMfolozi rivers merged – that brought about the demarcation of two separate protected areas, Hluhluwe Valley and iMfolozi Junction, into ‘reserved areas for game’ in 1895.

Between 1962 and 1989, land to the west and south of iMfolozi was incorporated into the reserve, fences were constructed and the Corridor belt of land gained reserve status, turning the whole into the Hluhluwe-iMfolozi National Park. From this time on, concerted efforts were made to try to restore the intensive damage wreaked on the natural life of the area. Records suggest that a single lion, likely to have migrated from Mozambique, appeared in 1958; others were reintroduced and a healthy population exists today although these particular lion are shy and evasive, and therefore not that visible to visitors. Elephant, giraffe, cheetah and wild dog, among others, were all steadily re-introduced into Hluhluwe-iMfolozi.

Benefactor of white rhino
Taking its size into account, the park sustains the largest population of Southern African white rhino in the world – in 2007 numbers were at the 2000 mark. When the park was proclaimed in 1895, there were hardly 50 of these animals still surviving – worldwide. The aggressive protection programme at Hluhluwe-iMfolozi, when the first official survey was undertaken, produced a count of 120 white rhino in 1929. The programme was so successful that by 1960, the existing 700-plus rhino had outgrown their territory. This set in motion the park’s highly regarded Operation Rhino, which, after multiple hurdles and setbacks, and much trial and error, has successfully translocated thousands of white rhino to reserves across Southern and East Africa and also the rest of the world. Black rhino share the territory with their white cousins in Hluhluwe-iMfolozi, but in much smaller numbers – the current estimate stands at 250. In terms of capture methods, the first tranquillizing darts used took 20 minutes to have any effect and by then the rhino had sometimes travelled 8km (5 miles). Drugs were tested and improved and capture techniques refined until the most effective solution was reached – transportation by helicopter. Today, a rhino targeted for capture is darted from a twin-seater helicopter; once it is tranquillized, a Puma helicopter lowers a crew team and crate next to it, the rhino is walked into the crate, after which it is airlifted using ropes and slings to the planned rhino enclosure. Operation Rhino has brought the Natal Parks Board (today KZN Wildlife) worldwide recognition, capped by the fact that the white rhino was the first species to be removed from the IUCN Red Data List. Visitors can share in the experience at the park’s Centenary Game Capture Centre, located in the eastern sector of iMfolozi, near Mambeni Gate. At times animals can be viewed in transit while being kept in holding pens; there are carnivore pens, a rhino museum and an info centre that offers audiovisual presentations.

Rampant rivers, forested hills and spreading grasslands
This park of contrasts moves from verdant uplands of tangled indigenous forest and woodland, incised by steep-scarped valleys (in the Hluhluwe sector) to spacious open grassland interspersed with stands of bushveld trees and wiry acacias (in the iMfolozi sector), where, at the fringes, mauve-blue hills rise as a backdrop. Park territory overlaps with the tropical zone in the moist north and straddles the drier, hotter subtropical zone progressing southwards. The preponderance of rivers and smaller tributaries throughout the reserve means that wildlife disperses across the terrain year-round, although the Maphumulu picnic site near Hluhluwe dam and the Sontuli Loop in iMfolozi often yield promising sights of wild animals congregating. Also, in iMfolozi, the sedimentary rock underlying the Mphafa stream’s sandy bed promotes more effective water storage, so during brittle winters, game-viewing is generally rewarding at the Mphafa water hole fringing iMfolozi’s Wilderness Area. iMfolozi’s two rivers (‘black’ alluding to the one river’s chocolatecoloured pools, ‘white’ to the light sandy bottom of its counterpart) are capricious and unpredicable. Their catchment area lies distant upcountry, so local weather conditions give no hint as to what’s happening upriver. In early 1984, Cyclone Demoina caused an 18m (60ft) rise in river levels, which scoured away entire ribbons of Sycamore Fig (Sycomorus ficus) and Weeping Boer-bean (Schotia brachypetala), creating extensively denuded river banks that are only fully recovering today. Special trees to take note of in Hluhluwe’s wood and forest pockets begin with the one that gave this part of the park its name. umHluhluwe in the Zulu tongue, Thorny Rope (Dalbergia armata) in ours, it is a spiky climber, its woody stem winding round and strangling other trees. The Zulu people use the ropey stem to weave muzzles for calves so they can be weaned off their mothers. The Wild Plum (Harpephyllum caffrum) is quickly recognizable in indigenous forest by its buttressed straight trunk of coarse bark topped by a compact crown that’s always spattered with red. These scarlet splotches are leaves turning colour, but because they’re immediately accompanied by new green ones, there is a constant cycle of leaves ageing and being replaced. The small rosy elongated berries – sour to taste – are relished by baboons, monkeys and bushbabies. Turacos (Louries), Cape Parrots and Bulbuls love to get in on the act too. The Zulu False-thorn (Albizia suluensis), with its rounded crown and leaves consisting of multiple stems lined with lots of leaflets, is endemic to northern Zululand only, so conservation is of paramount importance. Samango monkeys chew the leaves and Zulus use the bark for medicinal purposes, specifically to treat the nervous system and reduce fever. iMfolozi’s landscape is coloured by Themeda triandra grassland, its reddish-brown grass-heads reaching waist-high in autumn and attracting grazers to its straw-coloured expanse. Thorn trees are scattered across the veld; look out for the Knob-thorn (Acacia nigrescens), whose bark is stippled with spine-tipped knobs. In spring, the tree is leafless but covered in pink buds which become cream-yellow flower spikes. You won’t miss the Black Monkey-thorn (Acacia burkei), the park’s largest acacia and, as such, selected by the not insubstantial Black and Lappet-faced Vultures as nesting sites. Umbrella Thorns (Acacia tortilis) in turn carry the nests of long-legged Secretary Birds.

The Bush Experience
Lauded conservationist Dr Ian Player, who was in fact responsible for the implementation of Operation Rhino, was also the first person to establish South Africa’s earliest wilderness trails in the iMfolozi area. A substantial parcel of land, defined by the original Parks Board as an ‘area of land set aside and managed in such a way that its pristine character is not altered in any way’, was identified and all vehicular access to it restricted. Commandeering some 250km2 (96 sq miles) – roughly half of iMfolozi’s sprawl – only people on foot and horseback may penetrate its savannah thornveld, and impermanent structures in the form of trail camps provide shelter for the night. From mid-March to mid-December, a four-night guided wilderness trail starts out from the Mndindini Base Camp of wooden-poled tented units on the banks of the White iMfolozi River. Two of the nights are spent deep in the veld with the Milky Way wheeling above, a tented camp supplying the roof overhead for peaceful sweet dreams. Baggage is carried by donkey, while ablutions consist of hot bucket-showers and a spade and tissue roll as toilet facilities! For pacy city slickers who only have a weekend to unwind, there is a late Friday to Sunday trail, also overnighting at a tented camp, between mid-March and mid-December. iMfolozi has three selfguided foot trails too. Otherwise, two-hour bush walks led by field rangers set off regularly from Hilltop Camp in Hluhluwe and Mpila Camp in iMfolozi.