Lalapanzi

A visit to the North coast of KwaZulu Natal and the Umfolozi-Hluhluwe Game Reserve

Lalapanzi...I had to name this story because the word rings like a sweet memory form a magical place...

After the delightful day in Zululand we headed north again the next morning. We decided to try and find a guesthouse somewhere on the north coast to stay in the St Lucia vicinity for the evening. We were anxious to explore Northern Natal's wetlands and rich game and bird life.

Hluhluwe-Umfolozi Game Park

Our drive first took us to the Hluhluwe-Umfolozi game reserve. This area once was the hunting ground of the Zulu kings and was first proclaimed as two separate reserves in 1897 which makes them the oldest game parks in South Africa. They teemed with game right from the start but the wildlife was slaughtered in their thousands during the 1920's in an effort of the Government to eradicate the Tsetse fly. In the end the hunting was replaced by chemical control and the wild life populations stabilized. Today the Umfolozi-Hluhluwe game parks sustain large populations of elephant, Cape buffalo, giraffe, zebra, blue wildebeest, lion, leopard, cheetah, wild dog, spotted hyena, and many antelope but most notably a large population of white and black rhino.

Njala at Hluhluwe-Umfolozi Game Park

A zebra family!
Note the identical markings
of the mother and baby.

After a drink at the Hilltop camp restaurant we travelled on to St Lucia to find accommodation for the night. Enquiries at the local cafe cum grocery store led us to a nice guesthouse with the sing-song name of Lalapanzi. Upon the recommendation of our hostess we then set off to find a nice restaurant since we did not have much to eat that day. One look at an almost empty Italian restaurant prompted us to rather try the fish restaurant across the street where more customers were obviously enjoying themselves. This proved to be a good move and we enjoyed some well prepared fresh fish-a dish that never fails to delight Peter.

Lalapanzi Guesthouse

The character of the region has been determined by two major geophysical features. About 100 million years ago the area lay beneath the ocean, which over the millennia, retreated to leave a broad, sandy plain and a scatter of shallow depressions. These gathered fresh water from the rivers to form lakes that are now such a spectacular feature of the region. It is also the meeting place of tropical and sub-tropical zones which account in part for its many ecosystems and the extraordinary variety of plants animals and birds. Lake St Lucia is in reality an extended estuarine system that runs parallel to the seashore divided by it by some of the earth's highest vegetated dunes. The lakes waters are shallow, averaging just a metre in depth and therefore the ideal habitat for hippo, uncountable numbers of fish, crustaceans, insects and other nutritious organisms that attracts great numbers of aquatic birds - among them flamingoes, white pelicans, saddlebills, Caspian terns, spoonbills and twelve species of heron as well as the beautiful African Fish eagle and many colourful kingfishers. Oh!! Too many birds to name!

Peter on the estuary boat

The first crocodile we saw in the wild

Fortunately the Natal Parks Board stepped in to rescue them and the turtles are now returning to the beaches in increasing numbers. Therefore I made another promise to myself that I will go back one day to go on one of those night time tours to observe how hundreds of these little turtles struggle to find their way to the ocean or to see the females coming to pick up the scent to return to their own birthplaces...

A visit to a crocodile farm concluded our trip to the northern parts of Natal. Here we could not only see the huge Africa crocs but could compare them in size to Nile Crocodiles and alligators. I still think the one that we saw in the wild at St Lucia was bigger than these ones in captivity...

The park was beautiful and the bush very dense and that made spotting the animals very difficult. We were not fortunate to see any predators but we did see a lot of antelope, amongst others kudu, njala and a few smaller antelope as well as zebra, giraffes and blue wildebeest, warthogs at close range and some rhino further afield and many interesting birds. Peter was also interested in other things such as the huge anthills and wanted to have a closer look at one of them against my warnings that we are not supposed to leave our vehicle. But...you cannot convince people who have only seen these animals on TV or in a zoo that it is REALLY dangerous to leave the protection of a car. Well he got out and did his research about the ants without much trouble other than making me feel nervous. A short while later we noticed a game drive vehicle with a number of tourists in the road in front of us and when we got closer saw that they were looking at a white rhino right next to the road. That made Peter confess to me that he understood my anxiety when he saw how big this animal really was! LOL! At the same time it was also the first of the "big five" that he saw at close range in the wild.

The Umfolozi-Hluhluwe game park has the largest population of white and black rhino in South Africa. Throughout Africa these animals have been hunted mercilessly for their horns, highly valued in the Far East for their supposed medicinal properties and in the Middle East for ornamentation. However the population in the Natal parks were closely guarded and flourished to the point where some could be relocated to other game parks in South Africa and elsewhere. Small breeding herds of the animals in other regions ensured the survival of the white rhino. Incidentally, the white rhino is not really white but rather dark grey and is distinguished from the black rhino by the shape of its wide mouth. The black rhino has a pointed mouth, is slightly smaller than the white rhino and much more aggressive. Unfortunately the black rhino is still the prime target of poachers and of the 65 000 that was roaming South Africa only three decades ago less than 3 000 are left in the wild today.

The St Lucia Estuary

Later that evening we enjoyed a nice chat sitting on the balcony in front of our spacious abode. The mild evening breeze and the moonlight providing the perfect atmosphere for Peter telling me interesting stories about rats and ants at the time that he worked in the Philippines. In between we watched the small geckoes (That lead to Peter's stories) hunting ants on the veranda. A perfect end to a pleasant day in beautiful South Africa...

The next morning we tucked into a healthy breakfast on the patio before saying goodbye to our hostess who kindly booked a cruise on the St Lucia Estuary for us. The St Lucia Wetland park is nothing short of a magical place of shimmering lakes and rivers, forests, bush and pristine sea shore. It is one of three World Heritage Sites in South Africa and one of the most unspoilt wilderness areas left on the African continent. This 9 000 square kilometres (3 475 miles) wonderland of evergreen woodland, lake, savannah, river and floodplain sustains a remarkable variety of floral and wildlife habitats.

The estuary cruise was interesting but sadly I could not hear much of what the well-informed guide told us. Therefore I promised myself that I will go back some day to see and hear everything about this paradise. While on the cruise we saw hippo, a crocodile and a pair of fish Eagles at their nest. The boat also moored at the water's edge to allow us to observe the white and black mangrove trees that grow together and form a vital part of the ecology of the lagoon.

Something that I will also want to go back to see is the giant leatherback sea turtles that come ashore north of St Lucia to breed. I read that: "these animals travel enormous distances through the ocean to reach their ancestral breeding grounds, guided to their pre-ordained destination with uncanny precision by an impulse mechanism implanted at birth. Mating takes place a short distance out to sea, and then the female makes her ponderous way through the reefs and intertidal zone to the beach in quest of a scent, a distinctive smell that surrounded her when she herself was a hatchling".

"Mortality amongst the turtles is extremely high. Only one of every 500 that reach the water is thought, will evade death to return as an adult. Sadly, many that do survive fall prey to man's appetites and vanities: valued for their meat, their eggs, the oil in their bodies, the shells used for ornamentation and as talismans, they were slaughtered in their multitudes and at one stage they were perilously close to regional extinction." (From: "Presenting South Africa" by Peter Joyce)

An African crocodile (above)
and
an alligator (left)