I was given the opportunity to spend some time at Mkhuze Game Reserve which is north of Richards Bay. Richards daughter Justine and her husband James very kindly invited me to join them and I spent a couple of wonderful days there with them. Richard sadly was unable to get away and he encouraged me to go along and experience the area as he has visited there many times previously. I have to admit that I had to give it a lot of thought as my main concern were the spiders that are prolific in that part of the world. I have an abiding fear of these creatures. All those creepy legs....... Eventually I decided to set my fears aside and we set off on the long journey accompanied by Craig, James's brother. We arrived in the late afternoon and after carrying out a spider check in my tent, we relaxed in front of the fire pit with drink in hand and watched a bushveld sunset. Theres a uniquely peaceful quality to the sounds of the bush. Having said that I spent a restless night as I was very conscious of the various noises outside my tent but had no idea what they were. Although I was perfectly safe within the confines of my tent, and had my own adjoining bathroom, the bushcamp is not fenced and is open to whatever wildlife may decide to visit during the dark hours. Justine awoke to find a Rhino right outside their tent which was very special. The camp we were in is situated in a controlled hunting area and the next morning we set off with the Game Ranger. We drove for some time before some Wildebeest were spotted in the river bed. The guys set off by foot and Justine and I settled down to a long wait in the Land Rover. I spent some time photographing the magnificent Fever Trees ( Acacias) that are prevalent in this area - they truly are beautiful trees with their pale lime green trunks and branches. I think these were one of my favourite things on this trip. We eventually heard a shot and knew that the hunters had been successful - I was not that keen on witnessing any of this but as it turned out, the vehicle had to be driven over very rough terrain to pick up the animal so I was involved whether I liked it or not! The Wildebeest, an old male was carefully selected and he did not suffer, a very fast and clean death. The men battled to get him into the back of the Land Rover and eventually the Game Ranger had to remove the contents of the animals stomach which I did not want to watch, but actually found myself finding this very interesting as there was very little blood and it was fascinating to see the amount of undigested grass in the stomach. We returned to the camp and the Wildebeest was attended to by the staff there who would remove the skin and hang the carcass. The remainder of our time there was spent in game drives and visiting several hides where we saw quite a few animals, the highlight being driving around a corner and coming across a couple of Wild Dogs. They are a rare sighting, so we were very lucky.
Although we did not see any Hyenas they were definitely around the camp and we could hear their rather scary howls during the nights, quite an experience.
And as for the spiders.....well James and Justine found a large rain spider in their tent on the first night, so it appears my fears were well founded!
