The Nyalazi Gate of the Hluhluwe-Imfolozi National Park is a good 90 minutes drive away from St. Lucia. Knowing we won't have access to a grocery store or gas station, without leaving the Game Reserve, we filled up our stocks of food and beverages and refueled the car for the next three days. 

Excitement was spreading and we were both looking forward to some great days out in the African Bush, without phones, without Internet, even without electricity during the night.

Already on the corridor road, which leads straight through the park for the usual traffic, we saw the first bucks, the weather was a lot better than six years ago, when we where there in August, during South African winter timer, where it was comparatively cold and rainy.

When people think of safari or so called game drives, they think of expensive five star lodges and 4x4 open safari vehicles with a ranger driving and a tracker sitting on the hood, yes, that's one kind of doing it, but if you don't want to spend hundreds of Euros for a few nights, there is another way to do it. 

We stayed at Mpila Camp in the south of the National Park, which is a fully equipped tented camp with enclosed sanitary facilities and a kitchen. The campsite is not fenced, so you have to be aware of visitors all the time.

When we arrived at our tent, we had a group of Baboons and a Nyala buck over for lunch. Keep an eye on your belongings as long as there are monkeys of any kind close to you, we had one jumping straight through our car once, while rearranging some stuff, not to be mentioned what would have happend if he had stolen the car keys…

You can book game drives as mentioned above in Hluhluwe as well, but be rather like to do the driving ourselves. But one should know how to react to the behaviour of the different animals. Luckily Kai is a pro concerning this, as he has spent 6 months in a privat game reserve as an internship for university. 

After unpacking our stuff quickly and making some sandwiches, as well as making securing tent and kitchen against monkey invasion, we were on our first game drive armed with our cameras, hunting the best pictures we could get.

In a Big 5 game reserve you are not allowed to exit your car, only on signposted areas like picknick spots or parking spaces in front of a hide. That means you should have everything in reach during the drive. We were practically living on the backseat of the car and got creative with how to reach what.

It's a strange feeling when you have seen wild animals a few minutes before you stop at a picknick spot and get out of the car to sit outside and eat or go to the toilet, not knowing what is around the corner. Especially when the stall door is open and you have no idea what's inside. One must love the thrill. Not long ago we read a comment on Facebook about a lion that got itself locked in a toilet somehow. In that case cross your fingers you either run fast enough or get the door locked again very quickly and inform a ranger what you just discovered. 

The Parks Board obviously invested some work in renewing the flimsy hides, wooden shacks where you can sit on a water whole for example and watch animals. They all have at least a fence and a door now, six years ago there was the one or the other which had neither and that caused a queasy feeling. 

The gates are open from 5 am in the morning until 6 pm in the evening during spring and summer time. We got up at 4 am and were ready to get out into the park with our cooler box for breakfast at five when it opened, the only tricky point was showering in the dark, but a little LED reading lamp for the ebook had enough light to handle this task.

We let the days fade out with a glass of wine and some steaks on the braai (South African for BBQ) what attracted the hyenas to pay us a visit every night. At the reception they tell you that those guys are harmless, that maybe true, but they are not by chance one of the most dangerous animals, so we just watched from a distance.

On our last day, we drove to the northern part, having a cup of coffee at Hiltop Camp enjoying it's stunning view and left through Memorial Gate heading to our next destination:

Emdoneni Lodge with Cheetah Project.