Day 9 – Durbs to Hluhluwe
Posted August 28, 2010
By Pheather
Woke up to a beautiful quiet Sunday morning at the Durban beachfront. A complete contrast from the night before, the air was nice and cool at 6:30am and many joggers and dog walkers were out enjoing the fresh ocean air. In the daylight it looks a lot better. It looks like a lot of money went into upgrading the entire frontal beach area. Paved bricks and dedicated bike and jogging paths as far as we could see in either direction along the coast. For Capetonians, this can be compared to a cleaner version of the V&A Waterfront, Sea Point and Camps Bay, all rolled into one very well-planned coastal area. I’m not sure whether they did this in preparation for the World Cup Soccer, but it looks great and any overseas visitor will be impressed by the grand scale of development.
The N2 to from Durban facilitated a quick journey to Hluhluwe with only a brief stop at Game at the Gateway Mall to purchase a new Canon Eos 1000 for Kruger. Hluhluwe Imfolozi National Park contains all of the big five plus many other creatures. Most of them we saw on our first trip into the camp on the way to the rest camp. The gate guard sent us 20km in the wrong direction and we arrived at Impila Camp instead of Hilltop Camp which was 50km away, due to speed restrictions in the park it would take us another hour and a half to traverse the 50km [plus a R300 fine for being on the road after 6pm] Heather managed to wangle a nights accommodation at Impila. Erica had had enough of the day already and couldn’t be expected to travel further.
This was a blessing in disguise since Impila camp does not have any game fences and the wildlife are free to roam amoungst the cottages and facilities. The cottages were in our opinion, the cleanest and most well maintained accommodation so far and with all three of us feeling better after a few days of illness we turned in early for a very relaxing and comfortable night on the most comfortable mattresses to date.