Mkhuze & St Lucia birding Sep 2008

Our first holiday together as a couple! We drove down to Pongola where we slept in the caravan park and then onto Mkhuze Game Reserve where we spent four days of spectacular birding. Despite the first day begin very windy and rainy, we decided that Mkhuze must be one of the top birding spots in South Africa. We visited the fig forest, had a night drive during which I saw nightjars for the first time, and had our first ever day of topping 100 bird species ID'd in a day. Then we moved onto St Lucia for four days where we did some more leisurely birding, canoeing and a boat ride up the estuary.

Kututsa hiking trail Sep 2008

I picked Nicola up from her parents’ place and drove to the trail – George and the rest were going down in George’s bakkie. The directions we received were a little unclear and I had to phone George when we couldn’t find the turn-off as instructed. George indicated they also struggled but re-read the directions to be past Fouriesburg and not past Bethlehem as what we thought. We then carried on and almost missed the turn-off when it finally came up. We were at the Barn just after 6pm. The others have just arrived so we got the fire going quickly for dinner. Afterwards we chatted a little before getting into bed by 9pm.

Day 1 (13 Sep): Twittering birds woke me up early so I got up and started breakfast. This prompted the others to also start moving. As a result we were all ready to go at 07:15. It was a cold, overcast morning despite the forecast of sunny weather. We saw a footprint outside the Barn and followed the road as we came in. At the end of the polo field there were a few options but we couldn’t see another print. We thought the print pointed into the poplar forest back at the Barn so we walked back. However, when we walked a few meters into the forest it was clear that there was no path. We consulted the map at this point and determined that the path should go where we walked initially. Walking down the road once again we discovered a hidden footprint pointing further and so we were on our way. The path wound in between poplar and Ouhout clumps, sticking next to a small stream, for about 4km before slowly climbing upwards to the crest of a ridge. At the top we sat for a short break. It was still cold and overcast and most of us were still wearing longs. The path continued on the ridge, eventually linking up with some of the higher ridges in the area. I was slightly concerned that the map indicated that Day 1’s trail returned to the Barn and did not finish at the cave where we were to sleep. But we did not see any splits in the path and just continued, eventually noticing a large cave in the distance. We hoped that the path would take us to this cave and soon our hopes were realized. We arrived at the cave at 1pm. It was a huge overhang with divisions built from sandstone for sleeping. There were grass filled mattresses but we all carried our own mattresses and ground sheets. We rested the rest of the afternoon but also walked up to another cave higher up in the gorge. The fire was started shortly after 4pm and at 5pm all of us were warming our left-over meat from the previous day. As dusk approached, I heard an owl calling. As we followed the call we spotted the owl’s silhouette high up on a cliff on the opposite side of the kloof. It later turned out to be a Cape eagle-owl which was really quite a sighting. We chatted some time still around the fire, frying marshmallows, but none of us lasted much beyond 7pm.

Day 2 (14 Sep): We were up again early and were hiking shortly after 7am. The path ascended the slopes above the cave until we found ourselves directly above the cave. The path continued into a strange valley higher up in the kloof before contouring around to the slopes facing south towards the Barn. The path maintained a very stable contour and we enjoyed walking like this for more than 2km before the path ascended steeply next to a fence before hitting another contour that eventually led to the same path we were on the previous day. We sat down for a bit to eat but I was getting a little bored so Nicola and I hit the path down and soon found ourselves on the last little bit back to the Barn. After a shower we packed up and headed for Bethlehem’s Wimpy.

Kisumu, Kenya Sep 2008

A really spectacular sunset over Lake Victoria from the hotel in Kisumu