St Lucia - a World Heritage Site

Tuesday 29th January
With fierce hugs and moist eyes, we said farewell  to the Campbell family and headed along the coast, north of Durban towards St Lucia and the iSimangaliso Wetland park.
The iSimangaliso (formally Greater St Lucia) Wetland Park is South Africa's first Natural World Heritage Site and is the most ecologically and historically diverse park in Southern Africa.The unique mosaic of ecosystems - swamps, lakes, beaches, coral reef, wetlands, woodlands, coastal forests and grasslands - support an astounding variety of animal, bird and marine life. The name of the wetlands park was changed in 2007 in an effort to give the park a name that reflects its unique identity.

Enjoy that Dom Pedro!

We arrived at our guest house, Umlilo lodge by mid afternoon. and checked in after collecting our three day itinerary at the Heritage Safari and Tours office. The lush tropical gardens of the lodge provided a cool haven and we were almost seduced into staying in for the evening, however our first tour was an evening game drive into the iSimangaliso game park. Having a few hours to spare before the game drive we headed off to explore our surroundings. We enjoyed an early dinner at the Ski-Boat club overlooking the St Lucia estuary and watched hippo in the water as we drank Dom Pedros.

We were collected from the lodge at 7:00pm and found that we were a small party; there was just one other couple to share our guide, Brian's attentions. The iSimangaliso game park was no disappointment and we were treated to a wide variety of animals and night birds. To name but a few, we saw grazing hippo, buffalo, waterbuck and numerous bushbuck, not to mention a tiny chameleon that was trying to hide itself on a blade of grass. We were even treated to a glimpse of the illusive serval cat.

Wednesday 30th January

An hour's drive inland of St Lucia is the Hluhluwe-Imfolozi game park. We were collected once again at the lodge at 5:00am for our full day game drive. This was a bit of a shock to the system as we only got back from the night drive at 10:00 the previous evening and had to be up shortly after 4:15 to be ready in time. However, we were certainly glad that we didn't miss it as we were once again treated to a spectacular day of game viewing. The only sad part was that we didn't see any of the big cats, but what we did see more than made up for it. Here are a few photos to give you an idea.

Ian is once again afflicted with an upset constitution so I do hope he will feel better in time for our next adventure tomorrow. I think an early night is called for to give him a chance to recover.