This was an adrenaline filled day – I by chance was looking at the hotel “what to do” as I was contemplating a Safari. I came across Steve Conner’s business card “Trinity Tours” specialising in overnight and day tours throughout the beautiful province of Kwa-Zulu Natal. http://www.trinitytours.co.za he was most obliging and gave me several options of what was on offer with a variety of costs. We agreed on a day for the safari and the rest is history – if you are ever in Durban and looking for a guide or something to do don’t hesitate to contact Steve on his website I highly recommend his services.

The day started at sunrise, a beautiful sunny no wind day – perfect for animal watching – if you have ever noticed children are unsettled when it is windy, well so are animals.  Steve was waiting for me at 6am, I checked my watch to see if I was late no 05:55 surprisingly I was on time, the trip was going to take approximately two hours. The drive was very interesting we passed miles and miles of sugar cane fields and even saw some of the fields being burnt – they burn the fields to kill the snakes before they harvest the crops- I do have a vague memory of running through a cane field or maybe it was corn field as a child in Zimbabwe as well as seeing fields and fields of tobacco back in 1986/7.

About an hour into our journey we stopped for coffee and Steve had bought along some crossnants so we could eat on the go – further along we also saw forests of eucalyptus trees (Australian) also 90kms for trees, I have never seen such spindly eucalyptus trees they looked sick half starved – the trees are planted and used for paper production – I did make the comment that’s why all the paper was thin (I noticed much of the paper used is of a thinner quality) in Durban because the trees were thin…

We arrived at about 10am and was greeted by an elephant just near the gate, also there was a beautiful tree with hanging birds nests – it has a pretty yellow male bird and a rather plain brown female bird – they are amazing, the male makes this intricate nest and if the female doesn’t like it she knocks it down and the male has to start again – if only we as humans could do that lol – our journey begins through this vast park – it was about 34-36 degrees so nice and warm – some roads were sealed and some were not.

Huluhwe-iMfolozi is one of the oldest safari parks in South Africa, it covers approximately 96,000 hectares and there is plenty of wildlife. It has been suggested that it is better than Kruger for its accessibility. The open Savannah country area offers a wide range of animals – I was just a bit early to see the baby animals however did see some pregnant ones. Sadly the river beds were dry a sign of water shortage.

There are areas that you can walk around however being ever mindful of animals. I was so fortunate in that I saw a large variety of wild animals. Our most memorable encounter was with a great rhino – we had already seen several rhino however this one was crossing the road and the jeep in front of us was stationary, watching so we parked up close behind them. We were watching as this rhino walked about 2/3rds across the road, he looked straight at us and stopped – we all watched and waited he looked like he was scowling at us, the jeep edged forward ever so slightly with that the rhino put his back foot up start To stare at the driver almost daring him to keep going forward. The driver would have to go around the rhino and it would be very easy for the rhino to ram the car, we were about 5 metres away. I asked Steve would he attack, Steve said yes / possibly, thankfully the driver also realised this and stopped- he repeated this action several times and each time the rhino turned and looked and the driver stopped – at this stage I was getting nervous, Steve reassured me that we were the second vehicle and the drive would not go forward – this little dance was going on for about 15 minutes ( I must say it felt much longer)- the stand off was broken by another vehicle arriving in the other direction – the rhino looked up and saw it and decided the game was over and moved into the bush – I have to say I was thankful. What an experience.

We had lunch at the beautiful Hilltop Resturant over looking the Savannah-  I enjoyed a beautiful glass of red wine and a steak for lunch- you could see a herd of buffalo I the far distance – there were a variety of birds as well to admire.

There were lots of memorable events, the other two with mentioning was the herd of Buffalo that were meters away from the car and the other was we went around a bend and had to break suddenly as a Giraffe was directly isn’t front of us – that was another WOW moment – the herds of Impla were just beautiful to watch – There were giraffe, wieldbeast,warthog, Nyasaland many more – my heart & soul is enriched. I am so thankful for my blessed life and all who share it with me.