You have seen them in wildlife documentaries. Perhaps you have seen some of them in a zoo. Now you want to seen them for real, in the wild! The famous Big 5! Lion, Leopard, Elephant, Rhino and Buffalo! Not forgetting their co-stars, the Giraffe, Zebra, Wart hog, Wildebeest, Gazelle and my favourite, Africa’s number 1 human killer, the Hippopotamus!

You could book an expensive tour, however why not just do it yourself? Hire a car and off you go! If you have time, then Kruger is the biggest and most famous, however Kwa Zulu Natal has a wealth of Nature Reserves as well as the world heritage listed St Lucia Wetlands!

If you have three days to spare before or after the Wombok Festival, then I would suggest the following itinerary:

Day 1 and 2:

The closest Nature reserve to the St Lucia Wetlands is HluHluwe Nature Reserve. This reserve is famous for its program breeding white rhino and you will most certainly see many of these in the reserve! The accommodation ’Hilltop camp’ also recently won the ‘British Airways Tourism for Tomorrow Award’ and is very reasonably priced.

2 bed chalets (self catering) – R510pp or Rest huts (with communal ablution blocks and kitchen) R250pp
Note: There is no camping allowed – you might get eaten by a lion!

HluHluwe is located off a main toll road – the N3. This is a safe and fast route to travel. Ensure you have cash for the tolls.
Once you turn off the main road, the route to the park should take approx 40mins. This too is relatively safe, but it is best not to stop and get out of your car.

Ensure you have a good map as sometimes the signposting for the park can be a little confusing. Try to leave as early as possible on the day you intend to travel to the park, it takes approx 3 hours to get there. There are plenty of BBQ areas dotted around the park and at the camp so you should take along some supplies.

It is possible to see some animals during the day but cats and hyeanas rest during the day, so to see these, you would need to drive around in early morning or late evening. It would be best to book a trip with the camps game drives – you could do an evening or morning drive (or both) and they are quite cheap. NOTE: the parks only open at 5 in the morning, game drives start at 4am. So by staying at the park you get an hour of extra viewing before tour groups and hotel guests from outside the park are allowed in (and scare away the wildlife!)

If you can try to catch one meal at the restaurant, they make lots of game dishes which are some of the best I’ve tasted!

Details
http://www.kznwildlife.com/hilltop_dest.htm

Bookings (”Hilltop” is our recommendation): 
http://www.kznwildlife.com/hilltop_price.htm

Please book your rooms at the park as soon as possible.

Day 3:

The St Lucia Wetlands Estuary is not far from HluHluwe, approx 40 mins. I would suggest booking a boat trip with Advantage Tours in advance.

They run hippo and crock trips four times daily, and I suggest you book in advance. It is a 2 hour round trip, so ensure you have enough time to spare as you will need to get back to Durban.

Cost R130pp
http://www.advantagetours.co.za/

If you wish to make more of the trip, you could also do a hike, they have many well marked trails of varying lengths… and you should see plenty of birdlife, buck and little mudskippers…a marvel to behold!

I suggest you leave St. Lucia by 2 or 3pm you should make it back to Durban before dark.

I believe my hints above should provide reasonable idea on how to get around and what to expect. You should also have more quality time at each place. It may take a bit longer as you will need to call these places and make bookings in advance, but you should have a better quality holiday for it.

written by Sharon and Chris