Just two nights with Jess at Hilltop camp. This time the luxury of ‘breakfast included’ in the restaurant, while for dinner we grilled big juicy steaks both nights.
Dad, you’re not taking photos of impalas, are you?! Jess likes to keep moving, looking for the Big Five and teases her friends who want to take pics of things she’s seen before! Yes, Jess, I like their bums and I like the different sizes, three Moms, a teenager, a pre-teen and a toddler. Hmph!
Omigawd! You seriously stopped for a butterfly!? she teases next. Don’t worry, it’s all a game.
I know it may seem boring and Tom definitely voices that opinion strongly but we went to Hluhluwe again – and he came along, a rare event nowadays. What swung him was the restaurant food. We debated as a family and decided to stay in the cheaper rondawels, but to eat at the buffet. Tom also slept in both mornings as we went on our 6am game drives, so all-in-all he quite enjoyed the chilled vibe and the grub.
Leaving home was interesting. We left at 5am . .

Westville dawn
. . and then again at 8am with a changed tyre plus a repaired spare. It’s a tedious story.
In Hluhluwe we saw the usual stuff – plus these:

Acontias plumbeus
As I spotted the first one crossing the road I thought Bibron’s Blind Snake! Not for any good reason, but it was the first thing that came to mind. I’ve always wanted to see a Blind Snake. Then I thought beaked snake, snouted snake, some underground snake! What were they? I’ve asked Nick Evans, maybe he’ll enlighten me. Length: About from my wrist to my elbow. Say 300-350mm.
Back at the camp the buffet was a big hit. The only gripe Tom had was, “Dad, they’re playing Tobias’ music in the dining room!” Yeah, Tom, I’m relieved they’re not playing gangsta rap! After breakfast one morning we went outside where a huge round auntie and a huger rounder uncle filled a couple of deckchairs. As we gazed over the hills we heard them: She: Are you hungry? He: Not really; maybe peckish; She: Yeah, let’s get breakfast; and they heaved their huge bodies out of the deckchairs and waddled in. Hey, the breakfast was good! Full cooked brekker chased with muffins, scones, jam, toast and loads of good coffee.
~~oo0oo~~
Nick has replied at last: They’re not snakes at all! They are Giant Legless Skinks, Acontias plumbeus – family Scincidae. So we had a SkinkyDay, not a snaky day. Up to 450mm long, they eat worms, crickets and sometimes frogs. They bear live young and can have up to fourteen at a time. Skinks, of course are completely harmless to humans. The lighter one looks like it did the lizard trick of dropping its tail and regrowing a new one.
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Big creatures we saw elephant, buffalo, five white rhino, one croc, one lion, and kept looking for more as the kids were keen. Suited me, as there are always birds to see.
We also saw about eight slender mongoose, one little band of banded mongoose, two leguaans (water monitor lizards), a number of mice at the sides of the road (after grass seed?), samango and vervet monkeys, red duiker, bushbuck, nyala, impala, kudu, zebra, including one that had lots of brown who would have been wanted by the Quagga Project.


My best bird sighting was a falcon skimming low in front of us heading towards a line of trees along a stream, then shooting up and over some bushes to ambush a dove. It pursued it helter-skelter but then another falcon seemed to interfere and the dove managed to get away. Just then Jess piped up: “Gee! You certainly get excited about birds!” I hadn’t realised I’d been shouting. Hmph! I said, That was better than any attempted lion kill!
~~oo0oo~~
Here’s Nick Evans‘ pic of a Bibron’s Blind Snake – quite different:

Flying ants, black rhino, wild dogs and a magic unidentified raptor.
Plus impressive thunderstorms, pelting rain, dry stream beds that ended up running merrily. The Hluhluwe river changed from dry sandy bed to quite a brown torrent between Friday night and Sunday morning.
A coucal bubbling in the rain, then listening intently till his mate or rival called then immediately hunching and bobbing into his call. Jess said “Look Dad: He’s laughing!”
Yep, three teen girls. Who were most impressed by the buffet breakfast and most unimpressed by the massive thunderclap that banged right overhead in the wee dark hours of Saturday. “Dad, I thought the thatch of our rondawel was going to catch fire!” says Jess. Also mostly unimpressed by the lack of wifi.
Samango and vervet monkeys with babies, bushbuck, nyala, duiker, impala, zebra, francolin, longclaws, lots of buffalo, a dozen white rhino; Two eles right at the roadside each munching a tree for breakfast; baboon; a hippo out of water; a few giraffe.
~~oo0oo~~
That raptor: I thought ‘Augur Buzzard’ as I stopped the car just outside the reserve cattle grid gate on the main road. Three raptors were soaring in the wind welling up from a little ridge on the north of the road, right overhead. Surfing the airwave, they were.
Pale leading edge, rust-coloured trailing edge, black ‘fingers’; A falcon-like head pattern (yet not quite) and the size of a YBK or a marsh harrier. Soaring and diving spectacularly. Saw the underside mainly. Upperside I think brown-ish. Clean forgot to take a photo!
