An iconic National Park

Leaving St Lucia behind, we headed inland again to the Hluhluwe Imfolozi Park for a couple of nights at the Hilltop Camp – a very comfortable two bed chalet within easy walking distance of the bar and restaurant.

On the way here we encountered lots of cattle and goats on the road and realised it was Sunday because of the numbers of people dressed up and on their way to Church. Once we entered the park we saw White Rhino, Elephants, Buffalo and Nyala within a very short distance of the gate and enjoyed the hour or so drive up to Hilltop. Different terrain from the coastal plain and also from the reserve we visited last week.

 We are booked in for the morning game drive on Monday with registration at 4.50 am – it just keeps getting earlier – but decided to drive one of the loop routes ourselves this afternoon to see what we can encounter.

While we didn’t see herds of the plains animals which we have seen elsewhere, we did find another three separate Rhino Groups, including a mother with a young calf and an adolescent enjoying themselves in a mudhole.

This brought our rhino tally for the day to 10 and is certainly one of the main reasons for coming here to Hluhluwe. This park is credited with having saved the White Rhino from extinction with their breeding programme started in the 1950’s when there were only 20 individuals alive in the park as a result of big game hunting. Since then they have exported 3500 Rhino to other locations in Africa and further afield and have healthy populations throughout the country.