Jess and Tom share a birthday, so Tuesday was lunch in Umhlanga Rocks for urban Tom, and Thursday was a picnic in Mfolosi game reserve for nature guide Jess. Once again we forgot to take pics in the gateway centre, being far too busy eating, chatting, banking – Tom – and shopping for clothes – Jess.
A warm overcast day with a cool wind in the game reserve, and we remembered the cameras!
Breakfast was egg-mayo sandwiches and coffee made by Jess; Lunch was gourmet burgers flipped by Dad. Jess had brought three puddings, but we couldn’t – took them home.
On the way out an open game drive vehicle from a lodge outside the park needed help. The mighty Ford Ranger could help the Toyota Landcruiser with jumper cables and a no.10 spanner. Unfortunately his battery was dead as a dodo and needed a new one swopped out from a lodge backup vehicle, which was in the park with four staff members to lay out a lavish lunch for the pampered guests. But hey! we scored an ice cold beer and a coke from their cooler box. Thanks, safari guide man!
This time we must remember to take photos, Dad! Especially one of us in a recognisable place – a nice backdrop. Right, Jess.
Lots of eles, including one herd heading north in a long straggling line through the bush, crossing in front of us twice, thanks to a dogleg in the road. I counted fifty, but Jess, who hadn’t counted, said, No Dad, there were about fifteen! So I said OK there were forty. Luckily I took a video of one of the batches moving past – added below.
We give eles lots of room, as Jess is very cautious of them. Even at a good hundred metres a few of the young males gave us the Hey! Watch Yourself! ear shake.
Lots and LOTS of warthogs, all happily covered in mud. One sounder had longer crests/manes than usual – and light, like blonde – looked like Rod Stewart as a quintuplet. Seven square-lipped rhino; One mama with a small calf crossed right in front of us – no photo!
Surprisingly, a number of birds considering the stiff breeze that blew all day. We considered taking lunch in the car, but Sontuli picnic site is sheltered, so we used the last available table. Good to see a number of people having lunch there, parking an assortment of very capable and well-modified 4X4 vehicles with raised suspension and knobbly tyres next to the Fiat Unos that keep them humble.
Another photo missed by staring-in-awesome-wonder was a gathering of vultures on a wide sandy beach on a bend in the Black Mfolosi River, sunning and sand-bathing. Joined by Woolly-necked Storks, Pied Crows, Blacksmith Lapwing and Yellow-billed Kites.
– same stretch of river, different visit –
Also saw buffalo, wildebeest, zebra, giraffe banging heads, baboon, impala, nyala and kudu (only one); Went on a detour in search of cheetah, sent by an excited lady on her own in a bakkie who said we couldn’t miss them. The spot she thought the group of four cats would obligingly wait for us was about twenty minutes away. But Jess wanted to go so of course we did. The friendly lady hadn’t nailed them down so they’d felt free to wander off. Still, nice drive on a road we don’t usually use as it’s an entrance route from the western Gengeni gate which we have only exited twice to explore the interesting Ulundi to Melmoth road.
We loved Nselweni Bush Camp on the right bank of the Black Mfolosi river in Mfolosi Game Reserve. Kinda artistic/rustic, but with everything you need; solid walls with canvas ceilings above and a canvas roof over that; a good kitchen good bathroom en-suite. Windows and doors that open WIDE.
Nice and quiet; and full of birdlife while we were there. Some bush pigs visited us nightly, giving us a good closeup look by torchlight. And – we didn’t take pics!
On the riverbed, we watched an ele having a moment . .
Heard at night: Lion; Hyena; Bushbaby thicktail; Hippo
~~oo0oo~~
An early adoption of solar energy with batteries is now derelict – lead acid batteries short shelflife! Godd to see the thinking, and hopefully new renewable energy sources are being investigated in all our parks?
Three days in Mfolosi’s Mpila camp with two demure young ladies.
We saw a few confrontations: Two male impala, two male lions, four rhino, with one male threatening the others. Nothing much came of these feints and threats, despite the loud shouts which came from the back seat, where the two demure young ladies were seated: FIGHT! Fuck him up!
Useful to top up your salt intake every so often by sticking your tongue in your nostril. Must practice that.
Mpila camp’s ‘safari tents’ are great. Comfy with all modcons, own kitchen and en-suite semi-outdoor bathroom. It’s walled in with reeds, like the kitchen wall you see here, but only to shoulder height – above that, it’s open to the outdoors under the big canvas roof. It’s a treat. A Purple-banded Sunbird sang to me as I showered. No pictures.
While photographing these ‘acacia’ flowers (must get the real name – maybe Senegalia?) this biggish weevil or snout beetle dropped into my hand. I’ll ask iNaturalist.org to identify both the plant and its weevil. Otherwise it would be like I saw no weevil.
– a Wahlberg’s Eagle and a Yellow-billed Kite share a perch –
A slender mongoose made a breakfast appearance at a waterhole. If anything was nesting in there, they were egg and toast, as she inspected every nook and cranny.
Driving along, an oft-heard sound and a not-often-seen sighting:
– a very obliging Black Cuckoo calls ‘I’m So Sick!’ –
At the hide (must add the name – Bhejane?) I saw the lovely Mocking Cliff Chat, Lesser Striped Swallows, Village Weavers building nests and a Hadeda Ibis pulling down their new nests around its nest! A Diederik Cuckoo was calling, probably waiting to get into those weaver nests. This hide looks out over a waterfall – dry today:
At another waterhole a bird flew past as my little Canon snapped a 3-shot burst:
I took a new route home, exiting the Cengeni gate in the south-west of the park and heading for Ulundi, Melmoth and Eshowe. Right outside the gate exiting the Umfolozi Big Five Game Reserve there’s this puzzling sign:
– or turn around and go back fifty metres! –
I asked the man at the gate, How far to Ulundi? 37km. I asked him, And how is the road? and he got all coy, hummed and hah’d a bit, then blurted, “but it is a tar road.” It wasn’t too bad. A fairly normal look-sharp neglected tar road as we’re used to.
If I still had Marguerite Poland’s book on the isiZulu descriptive names of Nguni cattle I’d tell you how this beast on the way to Ulundi would be described:
– something like ‘she lifts her black dress to cross the river, revealing her white petticoat’ –
I’ll go back to Mfolosi. Soon, though. Before it also loses all its grasslands to bush encroachment.
Jess and I have been sussing out the Zululand game reserves COVID-19 scene and phoning and today was the day. We left soon after 6am. My gauge showed how little I have driven in lockdown – I filled up on the 24th March: Less than 100km in three months!
We got to the gate before 9am where the staff were very friendly and welcoming as they gave us an arms-length welcome complete with hand sanitising and temperature measuring.
Lovely day, not a cloud in the sky but a stiff breeze. Very few animals about but we just enjoyed being there. I decided to go straight to Sontuli picnic site for lunch and then straight home so we’d be back before 5pm.
– Jess took a shot of the Thrush and a selfie –
Jess made a lovely picnic lunch while I recorded a whole bunch of birds: Golden-tailed Woodpecker, Olive Thrush, Southern Black Tit, Golden-breasted Bunting, African Hoopoe, FT Drongo, Black Flycatcher, Blue Waxbill, Yellow-breasted Apalis, Emerald-spotted Wood Dove, Red-eyed Dove, White-backed Vulture, Rufous-naped Lark, Black-crowned Tchagra, Black-bellied Starling, Dark-capped Bulbul, Long-billed Crombec, Mocking Cliff Chat bashing a gecko, Yellow-fronted Canary, Pied Crow, Red-faced Mousebird, Crowned Lapwing, Red-billed Oxpecker, Cattle Egret, Woolly-necked Stork, etc. Heard Greater Honeyguide, Green-backed Camaroptera and Gorgeous Bush Shrike up close, but couldn’t spot them.
Jess spotted eles, giraffe, zebra, square-lipped rhino, warthogs, impala, and I saw one bushbuck.
On the way out I ducked down a side road to Bhekapansi Pan at the spur of the moment. And got a flat tyre! I asked Jess to keep her eyes peeled for lion and rhino – we’d seen both nearby – but she was intent on getting pics of me sweating.
My jack didn’t lift the car high enough to get the spare on; luckily a fellow Ford Ranger driver came along and I could use his jack on a rock to lift it up the extra 50mm I needed!
Thank you! That got us up and away – and home by 6:30pm
Just a day trip. Late start, so it was already warm and quiet by the time we got there.
– Mfolosi March 2020 –
Bird list: Barbets, Crested and Acacia Pied; Bulbul, Dark-capped; Greenbul, Sombre; Eagles, Long-crested and Brown Snake-; Shrike, Red-backed and Fiscal; Bush-shrikes, Gorgeous and Orange-breasted; Starlings, Cape Glossy and Violet-backed; Swallows, Wire-tailed and Lesser Striped; Kite, Yellow-billed; Crow, Pied; Wagtail, Pied; Cisticola, Rattling; Lark, Rufous-naped; Petronia, Yellow-throated; Batis, Cape; Flycatcher, Spotted; Pytilia, Green-winged; Tchagra, Black-crowned; Vulture, White-backed; Lapwing, Blacksmith; Thick-knee, Water; Oxpecker, Red-billed; Heron, Black-headed; Mousebird, Red-faced; Waxbill, Blue; Kingfisher, Brown-hooded; Plover, Three-banded; – In four hours –
– Three-banded Plover –
Jess was the spotter as usual; She spotted the eles, buffalo, kudu, wildebeast, warthogs, impala, zebra, giraffe, rhino; and the dung beetles. The only animal she didn’t spot first was a crocodile in the Black Mfolosi river which I spotted while she and Jordi were making lunch!
And this was a better lunch! She remembered the mayonnaise. Forgot the tomatoes, though. I like tomato on my rolls. So – still room for improvement, Jess . .
A lovely feature this visit was four or five sounders of warthogs, with up to seven hotdog-sized hoglets trotting next to Ma, tails in the air. We say when their tails are up it means ‘they have signal.’
~~~oo0oo~~~
– Stapelia gigantea –
Jessie took the pic of the Stapelia – one of the largest flowers in the plant kingdom. This one was probably over 300mm across. Smells like something died – hence, Giant Carrion Flower. Used in traditional medicine to treat hysteria and pain; in sorcery, to cause the death of one you dislike! Take that!
~~~oo0oo~~~
Helpful people
My numberplate was hanging down on one side – yes, something clever I did – but it was secure on the other side; so just hanging vertically instead of horizontally like normal numberplates. An Ezimvelo ranger flagged us down: Your numberplate is falling off. Yes, thank you. It’s secure on one side. I’ll fix it when I get home. Nine times this happened before lunch! Four rangers and five citizens flagged me down and instead of saying ‘There are lions round the next bend’ each one of them said Your numberplate is falling off. And nine times I said Yes, thank you. It’s secure on one side. I’ll fix it when I get home.
Jeeesh! Uncharacteristically, I fixed it with cable ties at the lunch stop.
This trip was notable for the worst lunch ever: Jess usually makes a great lunch. Fresh rolls, mayonnaise, freshly-sliced tomatoes. This time she had plasticy shop rolls, viennas – and chicken viennas at that – and tomato sauce. Ugh! She has undertaken to work with me in raising the standard.
A drizzly day, not much to report. I was learning about the new little Canon pocket camera. Haven’t worked it out yet. When we got home I saw it took video all the time we thought we were just focusing for still shots!
Also, I lost my tracker! Jess is normally heads-up, spotting everything and saying ‘What’s that?’ and all I have to do is ID what she’s spotted. Today her head was firmly down, eyes glued to her cellphone. ‘Dad, there’s no signal!’ and ‘Omigod! I got two bars! Oh damn, they’re gone!’
There’s a boyfriend, see.
Bummer. That’s why I made the feature pic an Impala bum.
– Mfolosi day trip Jan 2019 –
Ah! Now I see: I had the camera on Hybrid Auto mode, ‘whereby 2-4 seconds of video is captured before each still image and later combined into a 720p digest movie chronicling your day.’ That’s what I saw and wondered where it came from!
Mfolosi again. Just one night with three twenty year old lasses, Jess, Tarryn & Jordie.
– Kill Site! –
On the way up north one of my pet theories got a bit of backing evidence! When birding by car, I say, ‘Stop anywhere: There will almost always be some birds around’. Busting for a leak I stopped under a bridge on the N2 North. While sighing with relief, I spotted what looked like a black plastic bag flapping in the breeze in a small tree about 30m back; but my binocs revealed it to be a long-crested eagle staring intently at the ground a mere metre below it; then it pounced and fossicked around in the grass; when it flew up it had a plump grey rat with a shortish tail in its beak – a vlei rat, I’d guess. What a lovely sighting at a chance stop.
3 eles, 4 buff, 1 rhino + impalas on those sandbanks
– the tree that Jess hit! – or almost hit! –
In the reserve Jess took the wheel of the mighty Ford Ranger awhile on a quiet road on the far side, near the western gate; she hadn’t driven for a while, so I was pleased when she asked to. She did real well until – Murphy’s Law! – an open-top Land Cruiser came around the corner right in front of her, full of tourists and driven by a handsome tour guide, his tiny tight khaki shorts visible cos no door;
Distracted, and having to suddenly remember foot off the accelerator, clutch in, steer left and gently brake was a bit too much; so she just drove into a little thorn tree, slammed on brakes and stalled. I pretended to be peering into the thorns, some of which were inside my open window, through my binocs with keen interest!
Our two walks in the wilderness with the Taylors, Foggs, Janice Hallot and Gayle Adlam blur into one and I have got the photos all mixed up, so here are some more memories from 1999 and 2005.
On the drier of our two walks there was very little surface water about, so around the campfire one night . .
. . when my companions were suitably lubricated, I put one of my (many) pet theories to them: Tomorrow, instead of walking about scaring the animals, let’s go to that waterhole we saw where a dry streambed joins the Mfolosi river and get comfortable and simply lurk there till lunchtime, like crocodiles! Let the animals come to us. Who’s in favour?
To my surprise and delight they were all so mellow and agreeable – dronk – they voted in favour, and we did just that. It was wonderful! We got comfortable a nice distance from the water, leaning against tree trunks, and watched as all sorts of birds and animals came to drink. My idea of heaven: Lurking with telescope, binoculars, books and food!
These were slackpacking walks, so our kit was carried to the outlying camp by these handy bongolos. Here you can see Dizzi looking for her luggage, muttering “Where’s my bongolo? Why don’t they have number plates, cos all bongolos look the same?”
On the wetter walk it got hot one day and we asked our Rangers if we could swim. They said they knew just the spot. Miles later we got to the river at their swimming hole. But it was occupied:
Aw! Two buffs, an ele and a lioness had all had the same idea. We didn’t argue with them, we trudged on. Miles later we crossed the river again, and had a swim. Sort of. Luckily no pictures were taken. These were of a shoes-off river crossing, footwear and footprints:
These wilderness walks end with a last night back at base camp. We had left celebration supplies there in anticipation.
Then a champagne breakfast kombi drive before we left the park.
– at last our photographer Trish is in a photo – behind Jon’s champagne glass –
~~oo0oo~~
imbongolo – donkey; two donkeys: izimbongolo
Denyse took the kudu, zebra and vultures-on-kill photos in the feature collage
Memory is a Dodgy Business. I remembered the scene so clearly. Standing next to a fresh buffalo carcase red with blood; looking around, nervous that the lions who had obviously recently killed it might come back and be annoyed with us for putting our feet on their lunch.
We were on a walk in the beautiful wilderness area of Mfolosi game reserve; no roads and restricted access; accompanied by our two armed Rangers, we weren’t in any specific danger, but the feeling of ‘we’d better be careful’ was there, and I kept scanning the area around us.
Or that’s how I remembered it over the years. An actual picture painted a different picture! Photographic evidence of how dodgy one’s memory can be and how the years can enhance it! The top picture was sort of my memory; Here’s the actual ‘carcase’ – it’s a skeleton! No lion would want to look at it! Nor a hyena, nor a vulture! Only detritivores would still be interested in those horns n bones!
Aitch took the picture with her point-and-shoot Nikon. Our group photographer is the colonial Tarzan-like oke on the left. He had the penis-substitute camera and bossed us around and lined us up and made us pose (poeseer, he said, sounding like one of SanMarie’s jokes – she’s on the right with a rifle), and fiddled with his f-stop. A purist, he was still deeply into film and darkroom development theory. So where’s his picture?
He’d forgotten to put film in the camera! We have not let Taylor forget it.
~~oo0oo~~
Here’s the moth that will get to those horns in time:
Ceratophaga vastella
and whose larvae will make them look like this:
. . and here’s an old-timer-y sepia look to make the carcase look fresher:
– olden daze –
. .and another desperate attempt at the realism I so clearly remember:
Up at 4am, left at 4.30, inside the Mfolosi gate at 7.15am. Me and Jess and a friend. Tom couldn’t imagine anything worse that being stuck in a car with two girls and no wifi so he stayed home and went fishing for grunter in the harbour with the Naude boys. Craig took a picture:
In Mfolosi we had good close-up views of nine white rhino, buffalo, warthog, giraffe, zebra, kudu, nyala and impala. An across-the-river view of four or five lions; Two eles about 100m off and approaching but Jess got nervous from watching youtube where eles overturn cars so we drove off. And bonus: Two black rhino as we were leaving the park.
LOTS of birds, including the best single bird party I’ve seen in years! A drongo chased a southern black tit so I stopped to look. Next a black-headed oriole, a golden-tailed woodpecker, a puffback shrike, white helmet shrikes, a bearded woodpecker, dark-capped bulbuls, orange-breasted bush shrike, a grey-headed bush shrike calling nearby, petronias, black-collared barbets, yellow-bellied bulbul, a large cisticola, white-bellied sunbird. All moving together in some trees against a rocky hillside on the way up to Mpila camp.
Also saw white-backed vultures, emerald-spotted wood dove, cape turtle dove, red-faced mousebirds, paradise flycatcher, black-crowned tchagra, chinspot batis, gorgeous bush shrike (heard only), cape glossy starling, a single red-billed quelea in a flock of winter weavers, pied crow, red-billed oxpecker, golden-breasted bunting, blue waxbill, melba finch pair.
Breakfast and lunch at the picnic spots. Home by 5pm.
Must remember to take photos! I took one: the tortoise on the road!
Went back to Mfolosi today. Kids were mad keen, especially Jess. Determined to see a lion.
So we did. A lovely big male. I thought that’ll keep her quiet for a while. Only to find out later that dear old silent-one Jess couldn’t see it from back in the canopy where she and her friend Sindi were snugly seated – at their request. But – being Jess – she didn’t say anything at the time!! There was a car blocking her view and she didn’t say a word! Had a quiet drizz in my arms at the picnic spot afterwards! Ai! Die Kinders! (Tom would have raised hell if HE couldn’t see it). I’m amazed Sindi didn’t say something. She’s not usually shy.
To my embarrassment I notice I took 44 pics – and not one of the kids.
Steve wrote: Haai. Next trip make sure Jess is in the front seat and has charge of the binoculars!
Me: My Jessie had choice of seat, being the oldest, and has her own binoculars. All she needed to do was squawk and we could have edged forward by a metre or so but she froze. As she does. The good thing is now we’ll have to go back!
It gets hot but nothing Sahara. I don’t use aircon in the bush. We drove north in October, which the Zims call suicide month, without once switching the aircon on. All windows down is all. When it gets too stinking hot wet towels work amazingly well.
My godson Gary Hill worked as a ranger at Mala Mala for a couple years. Also had a ball, took lots of pics and ran their blog. Loved it, but has moved on. They pay shit and prospects are few, so after a while its comes time to move on.
Find his swansong here:
Brauer wrote: Lyin’ and dandelion??
Surely they don’t qualify as communities. (The kids had said ‘Dad! Don’t stop here!’ I asked why not. ‘Too many “communities” Dad!’ What?! Look at the “communities,” Dad!’ they said, pointing at the local people. I shook my head and asked them when they last looked in a mirror!! Pests).
“WE sang rap”?? Must have been THEY and then the old toppie serenading them with a bit of Mama Mia accompanied by eyerolling.
Me:Hey, WE sing:
I woke up in a noo Bughatti
I woke up in a noo Bughatti
I woke up in a noo Bughatti
I woke up in a noo Bughatti
I woke up in a noo Bughatti
I woke up in a noo Bughatti
and
My nigger, bad nigger , my nig nig nigger
My nigger, bad nigger , my nig nig nigger
My nigger, bad nigger , my nig nig nigger
My nigger, bad nigger , my nig nig nigger
My nigger, bad nigger , my nig nig nigger
and I gonna PICK the world up and gonna drop it on yo fuckin head
What? You don’t know the classics?
~~~oo0oo~~~
PS: Later Jess told me she HAD seen the lion but just not as well as she’d have liked to!
PPS: My favourite sighting was the meadows full of flowers. They were amazing!
– Mfolosi Meadow – the grass was teeming with flowers! –
~~~oo0oo~~~
Pics of my self-styled “NOT communities” on other trips:
Let’s go to the lion park, Dad, I’ve never seen lions! This is Jess. I remind her that she has, actually, in Zambia – but she was little – five years old, 2003. I must show her the pics in South Luangwa Park.
They’re in hard bargaining mode, as we’re on our way to my folks’ place in PMB. It’s my ole man’s 91st birthday lunch, which is why I’m dragging them to Sleepy Hollow. It’s not their best place to visit, so I agree: Behave sociably and we can go to the lion park after lunch. OK?
By the time we get to the “Lion Park” it’s closed, but we can “see the lions only”. Same price, one hundred Saffrican Ront. I decide stuffit, let’s rather do this properly. “Stuff these lions” I announce, “We’re going to Mfolosi game reserve for the day tomorrow”. “Let’s go and see if we can spot some real lions”.
We left at 6:00am sharp and were in the park at 8:40am, already paid and entered, R240 for the five of us and the car for the day.
We had a ball. The kids were expert spotters, we saw lots & lots of eles, rhino, buff, giraffe, nyala, impala, bushbuck, wilderbeasts, wartpigs ensovoorts. – And a clear sighting of a gorgeous bush shrike!!
We sang rap and Mama Mia all the way there and back. And we laughed! These brats have decided they don’t like mixing with too many communities. Especially in crowds. Used to be bantu, then plurals, anderskleuriges, euphemisms, etc. Now its communities.
“Don’t stop here, Dad” as we drive through a village, “there are too many communities here”. I threaten to buy them each a mirror so they can check their mahogany brown selves whenever they think of such nonsense, but they just hose themselves at me.
They must have introspected a bit, though, because at lunch at the picnic spot they announce: “Hey we’re the only communities here!” To shine them up I made them do a spot of community tribal dancing in a tree.
– the communities climb a tree – Jess & Minenhle –
And of course the two 12yr olds Tom & Lungelo couldn’t miss the opportunity to disgust the teenage girls by letting rip on the way back, causing a hasty winding down of windows and heads hanging out for fresh air till the green fumes could waft away.
So the lion park sparked a search for ‘real’ lions.
We didn’t see a lion this visit, but I heard a whole lotta lyin’.
~~~oo0oo~~~
Saffrican Ront – South African Rand; worth anywhere from US$1.42 (1973) to less than a dime (2015)! Depends when you ask;
