17th - 22nd August
17th - 19th August
Hlane Royal National Park
After a circuitous route avoiding Maputo to get to the border with Swaziland (which saw us drive on a road that went from decent tar to gravel to sand to no road and back to tar!) we had a very easy crossing to get us to Hlane Royal National Park to get our last fix of seeing animals.
We were incredily lucky and got to see rhinos, elephants, lions, giraffe, zebra, wildebeest, warthog and lots of different antelope.
20th August
Lidwala Lodge, Ezulwini Valley
Lobamba is the cultural heart of Swaziland and is where the King has his main Royal Residence. We went on a couple of cultural tours, one with Sanele as our guide, who was very entertaining. We visited their national museum, the Kings mausoleum and memorial park, one of the local villages to drink home brewed beer, which was actually ok, and finished up with a BBQ. He told us about the tradtions on marriage (men can have many wives; his father has two), their King (who currently has 17 wives - his father had 70) and their two main festivals which celebrate the purity of girls (held in August/September) and boys (held in December) which both last a week.
The second tour was at Matenga National Reserve where we learnt more about the way a very traditional village works and were entertained by some great singing and dancing. We also got to see our fourth waterfall.
21st - 22nd August
Malolotja Nature Reserve
Our last two nights in Swaziland were spent up in the mountains so we stayed in one of their self catering cabins rather than camp as it was really cold - wimps I know 😂
The mountains are stunning and have a great network of hiking trails, one of which we spent a morning doing to go see another waterfall (unfortunately not too impressive). We did get to see mountain zebras which are very rare which we werent expecting at all.
SOUTH AFRICA
23rd - 24th August
Giglio Boutique Hotel, Johannesburg
A small treat staying at this lovely hotel for the last two nights of our trip before we fly home on the 25th.