A day at the Lake St. Lucia Eastern Section

This morning we woke up at our campsite here in St. Lucia in South Africa, today we will explore the Lake St. Lucia Eastern Section, that is part of the iSimangaliso Wetland Park, both day and night: we will do a self-drive by day and then participate in a night safari.

We have breakfast and then we leave by our Dr. Livingstone, we cross the town of St. Lucia and continue along the road that leads to the entrance of Bhangazi.

From here a paved road heads North parallel to the coast of the Indian Ocean, around us, as far as the eye can see, there are bushes, wild flowers, small palms, small swampy areas; nature is a very beautiful and it is very relaxing to drive here.

We decide to cover all the dirt detours that we encounter along the way because we do not want to miss anything of this part of the park.

The first detour that we meet is the Pan Loop, a short dirt road that leads to a pan that collects some water; the past few days it rained and so rainwater is collected here.

Here we see several waterfowl such as the African jacana, the woolly-neck, several herons and the spur-winged geese; while, above our heads, a raptor flies, we are a bit backlit to see it and photograph it well and we are also a little uncertain about its species, so we limit ourselves to watch it twirl with its wings spread.

We return to the main road and continue North to the next detour, the Vlei Loop.

In the back roads there are no other cars, only those of the organized safaris and the animals are less disturbed, we see some red duikers that are grazing, several crested guineafowls at the roadside, busy pecking on the ground, we also meet a bushbuck that, when it hears us coming, stops and looks at us, it seems that it is posing for the photos.

At one point we see two gray shapes in the distance in the high grass: incredible! they are two white rhinos!

We knew that rhinos here are present but we did not think we would be able to see them; we look at them well with the binoculars and realize that they do not have the horn, it must have been removed to protect them from poachers, in fact, later, a safari guide tells us that they were two orphans of poaching, they were weaned and raised in an orphanage and then they were released in the wild, right here in iSimangaliso, when they grew up.

We are happy to have witnessed the happy ending of a story that began in the worst way.

On the branches of the trees we spot several birds including a beautiful crowned eagle and a Narita trogon, the latter is a bit far to be photographed, but we admire its beautiful plumage colors with our binoculars, we photographed it already well in the uMkhuze Game Reserve, when we went on a walking safari.

We return to the main road for about 2 km and then turn right, following the sign to Mission Rocks.

After about 800 meters there is a lookout from which you can see the whole coast and the forest; to reach this vantage point you have to take a short path, that starts from the parking lot, in reality the viewpoints are two, in fact the path, at a certain point, divides, we walked both paths and we can say that the best view is from the lookout that can be reached by the flat trail.

We go back to the parking lot and we'd really like to have a coffee at the picnic area tables, but tonight it must have rained down and the tables are wet, and there's mud everywhere, even Dr. Livingstone has been well muddied; we drink the coffee in any case but directly at the parking lot.

Then we proceed to the end of the road, here is the beach of Mission Rocks, that is characterized by a series of rock formations, partially eroded by the waves of the ocean.

We spend some time here on the beach, there is just us, the gulls and cormorants, the air is salty and the wind comes from the ocean; we take a walk on the rocks, looking for corners where to take pictures, then we sit on a large rock to enjoy this moment.

After a while we decide to continue, we leave again and return to the main road; we are really enjoying the Lake St. Lucia Eastern Shore, we are very happy to have decided to have dedicated a whole day to visit it.

We arrive at the Dune Loop and take the detour, this road is not very wide and is one-way; the road rises slightly on some vegetated dunes from where it is possible to have a sight on the rest of the park: in the distance one can see some sandy dunes; the vegetation of the park, here as elsewhere, is lush and very green.

From here we return to the main road and arrive at Cape Vidal; here is a campsite, a series of cottages, a gas station, a bar and a slide to put boats in the water.

We go towards the beach that is immense and deserted, with golden sand; behind it there are small sandy dunes with some vegetation.

Lunch time has gone since a while and we are a bit hungry, so we take everything we need to picnic and we sit at a wooden table with benches that is on a small dune, in the shadow of a big tree and, while we have lunch, we enjoy the panorama of the Indian Ocean and of this wonderful beach.

After lunch we go down to the beach and take a walk on the shore, in addition to us, there are only the seagulls and you only hear the sound of the waves, how wonderful.

The road, in this part of the park, ends here in Cape Vidal, so, after spending some time on the beach, we decide to go back; while we get back to take our car, Dr. Livingstone, we see some bushbucks a few meters far from us, usually they are shy and scary animals but these do not seem intimidated by our presence and do not run away.

We leave and return to the South, but after just over 3 km we turn right and take the Grassloop Loop, that makes a one-way semi-circle around the Mfabeni Swamp and reaches the Ezibomvini Red Dunes, then returns to the main road.

We stop at the viewpoint of Lokothwayo that is located on the South shore of the Bhangazi Lake; we walk the path to the lake, here are a lot of hippo’s roads that these mammals travel when they leave the lake in the evening to browse.

We go back to our car, we continue and we also stop at the other two lookouts: the Swamp Forest and the Ezibomvini, where there are partially vegetated red sand dunes.

The Grassloop is very beautiful, it is perhaps one of the areas that we like most of the Eastern Shore, along with the beaches, because nature here seems wilder even if, apart from some dung beetle that flies, we do not see any animal.

When we return to the main road we go to see the Catalina Bay lookout; it is very scenic, especially at sunset, as it has a view of the St Lucia Lake.

We also follow the last loop: the Forest Loop, that was only opened in 2017; here we meet several waterbucks that here are in their ideal environment, among lush vegetation and marshes and lakes.

We leave the park while the sun is descending towards the horizon, we do not go to our campsite but we stop on the main street of St. Lucia; at 8.30pm we have a night safari, so we stop to eat something for dinner, at a very South African time.

At 8.30pm we leave for our night safari with ShakaBarker, one of the safari agencies here in St. Lucia; we think they are very professional and our guide, Sakhile, is spectacular, but I do not want to anticipate anything!

We get on our safari car and leave, it's dark and, as soon as we leave the town of St. Lucia behind, we find ourselves in the darkness; shortly after we arrive at the entrance to Bhangazi, the same from where we entered this morning.

Immediately after passing the entrance we turn right into a side road, here we find lots of zebras and, joking, we say that they are the reception committee of the park; Sakhile stops the car because, before proceeding with the safari, he wants to tell us a bit of information about iSimangaliso and the St. Lucia Lake, it is very interesting and he is very well prepared, as well as too likeable.

Entering the park at night with the dark gives us a strange feeling, we seem to have never been here before, without the light we have few points of reference and we struggle to understand if we are in a place where we were even today or not.

We spot different gray, or common, duikers that, unlike red red duikers, are nocturnal.

Continuing our exploration, at a certain point, we find three hyenas on the path, we see them because we first light them with the headlights of the car and then with the spotlight; the hyenas look at us and then they continue their journey, they venture into the high grass and then sit down a little further.

First we spot some elderly and solitary male buffaloes and then a herd of buffaloes; in the darkness we see their eyes with the spotlight.

Buffaloes, like all other herbivores, do not see anything in the darkness, they can only count on the light reflected by the moon, when the latter is high in the sky, otherwise they grope in the darkness and it is not easy to survive the attacks of the predators, that instead need very little light to see each other very well, luckily for the buffaloes, here the predators are really rare.

We also see some kudus in the bushes, they look very cautious, they do not see us in the dark and this increases their fearful and suspicious being.

As we continue on our safari at some point Sakhile stops and gets out of the car, we do not know how, but he managed to see a chameleon on the branch of a bush; he takes it gently and brings it to us: it is very small and beautiful, I adore the chameleons!

We also see others during this night safari, they are too beautiful and fascinating; Sakhile tells us several interesting info.

At one point we see a nightjar on the road, we heard them so many times during our African nights, but we had never seen them since they are nocturnal birds that are usually on the ground and therefore are difficult to spot in the grass, but on the road we can see it very well, until it decides to fly away, a bit scared by our presence.

During this night safari we see others, always perched in the street, we are sorry to scare them and make them fly away, but there is no other way, unfortunately, there is only one road.

By illuminating with the spotlight we can see different bush babies on the branches of the trees, the English the name "bush baby" is related to the fact that their cry vaguely resembles the one of a crying baby; at one point a bush baby crosses the road running, we see it very well with its beautiful tail, but it is impossible to photograph it or shoot it, the light is not really the best and it is too fast.

We are enjoying the Eastern Shore at night a lot; at some point we stop in the middle of nowhere and Sakhile offers us something warm to drink; around us there is an impenetrable darkness, broken only by the lights of our off-road, the feeling that we experience is indescribable, I can only say that it is very exciting and we would not want to be anywhere else in the world.

After about three hours of safari we return to the gate, go out and head towards the town of St. Lucia; we continue to use the spotlight because, in the dark, the hippos come out of the water to browse and could be anywhere in the city.

We say goodbye to Sakhile and thank him for the wonderful experience that he made us live, we get on Dr. Livingstone and return to the Sugar loaf camping, we proceed slowly, we do not want to find a hippo on the road right in front of us; we arrive at the campsite and go to our pitch: no hippos, on the one hand we regret not having seen them, but on the other better this way, they are not very sociable when they are out of the water.

We go to sleep happy for the wonderful day spent in the Eastern Shore of Lake St. Lucia ... Good night!