For those who have holidayed with us, you will know Panda starts snoring (loudly) before his head hits the pillow, last night was no exception. I was reading my book, with no hope of sleep, for a while. I heard a scuttling in the thatch and looked up to see a bat, clearly irate because the light was on, or it could also have been the snoring. Eventually we both fell asleep. This morning I woke up with bat shit all over my bed. I had been complaining of a bad smell coming from the spare room, where I had stored my bags on the bed. Now the penny dropped, bat pee, not a pleasant odor. The bush can have its down sides.
On our drive out the park, we saw a nice herd of waterbuck and an oribi. I was particularly excited about the oribi, as this was my house in primary school and I haven't seen many of them.
It was an easy drive from Ithala to Umkhuze that took around 2 ½ hours. We passed through Louwsberg, traveled along a gravel road giving access to private game farms. The terrain was grassland with beautiful Acacia trees. We turned onto the N2 at Jozini Dam, with the Ubombo Mountains to our left. We stopped at Umkhuze town for lunch and to give posting blogs another attempt, thankfully with success this time.
We are staying at the main camp, Mantuma. The accommodation is the same as Kruger Park bungalows, clean and comfortable. The last time we stayed at this camp was to celebrate Gray’s 40th. I have a picture of him standing with the kids in my dressing room at home, Ga was 11, Kirst was 9 and Robs was 5. That was 15 years ago, where has the time gone??
It was really hot today with temperatures in the low 30s. We had a lazy afternoon, relaxing in our room, with the air con on.
Feeling far too lazy, we decided to go for a sundowner drive. The bush here is real bushveld, the grass and trees in great condition, unlike our Limpopo bushveld that is still recovering from last years drought. We came across a patch of potato bushes, they give off my all time favorite bush smell.
Sitting around the fire … again, we were ‘chowed by mozzies’, as the term goes, and had to haul out the tabbard spray, or I guess we could drink more G & T’s. The highlight of the evening, however, was a visit from two bush babies during dinner.
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