Hlane Royal National Park

We arrived at Hlane Royal National Park full of excitement and anticipation.

This is almost a Big Five game reserve – Lion, Leopard, Rhino and Elephant but no Buffalo…I can do without Buffalo, grumpy, dangerous creatures!

The Park is used for active conservation and is therefore divided into three areas – one for Rhinos to protect the Rhinos, one for Lions to protect the Conservationists and one for everything else! Each area is large as would be expected in a national park, but our chances of seeing lions were higher than elsewhere as the guides have got to know their habits.

First impressions were good. A beautiful campsite and yet more friendly people.

We headed straight for the camp site´s waterhole and were thrilled to see our first big game right there.

As we watched and the light started to fade into dusk we were in for another treat.

This was a good sign, our expectations had been set! As the sun went down over the waterhole we were excited to start exploring the next day.

We decided to start with a self-drive around the ´everything else´ area. The vegetation was much denser than at Mlilwane but there was definitely a lot more to see.

Although some were quite small and maybe a little in the way!

We decided to try the restaurant that evening and found ourselves surrounded by some rather macabre remnants of previous occupants!

We spent the evening by the fire staring up at the stars and listening to lions roaring.

The next day we booked a 2 hour guided drive which included entry into the lion reserve. I called it the ´Lion Drive´ to the amusement of the receptionist – there was no doubting what I had come to see!

The Guide was great, he asked what interested us most and before he could finish his sentence I said ´Lions!¨ and grinned at him. He decided not to spend too much time in the general area and headed straight to the main event – am I that hard to read??

We spent about half an hour driving around following tracks and sounds before the stars of the show made their first appearance. And what an appearance it was – no difficulty getting the camera to focus this time!

A mother and her two adult sons. They were actually watching rhinos through the fence that seperates the two areas. Apparently they spend a lot of time doing this!

At one point I wasn´t sure how welcome we were….

But they quickly got used to us and carried on going about their day

We watched them for a long time. It was all I could do not to jump out of the open-topped Land Cruiser and go and cuddle them!

Guides have a lot of trouble keeping me sitting down when lions are around!

Even though they don´t do a lot….

When one of the brothers started washing we saw he had an injury, which sadly comes with the territory when you´re a lion.

But one of the strengths of these beautiful animals is the fact that they live in family prides who take care of each other when they need it. He wasn´t in any danger.

I took a lot of photos of my lions, I estimate about 350 in an hour! There is just something about lions that draws me in.

But eventually we had to leave and carry on with the rest of our game drive.

We hadn´t gone far before we came across a very, very large male elephant

He was not in a good mood!

If you look closely at his face in the first picture you can see what look like wet marks on his cheeks behind his eyes. These are hormones being secreted out of his temporal gland and it means one thing – he´s in musth. In other words, he´s horny, aggressive and over sensitive!

He absolutely did not want us there. He glared at us for a moment then lumbered towards us. Our guide slowly pulled the Land Cruiser further away from him. But he still wasn´t satisfied. He was, in fact, very grumpy! He strutted into the road behind us and gave a few clear signals that we were not welcome, spreading out his ears and huffing.

Our guide did not want to antagonize him but equally knew that, whilst elephants can run very fast – up to 40km an hour – if it came down to it, a Land Cruiser can go quicker! So we drove slowly away, taking just enough time for me to get some lovely shots of an angry elephant chasing us down the road!

It had been a fantastic day. We arrived back at camp as the sun set, our heads swirling with excitment.

The next day we stayed on camp taking it easy and working through the immense number of photos I had taken! We were not alone though. Yesterday an elephant decided he didn´t like us in the Park, today a Woodpecker decide he didn´t like Henry!

No matter how many times we chased him away, he just kept on trying to kill Henry´s wing mirror!

Having had another relaxing day we then decided to go for a guided walking tour into the rhino area. At first the Guide didn´t seem confident, there were few signs of large game and the only surprise we had was a wart hog leaping out from behind a bush.

But then all of a sudden he stopped short and put his fingers to his lips. We strained our eyes looking into the bush trying to see what was there.

We needn´t have worried about missing anything, after a few minutes a large, female rhino stepped out into clear view.

She was about 10 metres away and looking directly at us.

And she was shortly followed by her daughter….

Our Guide gestured for us to quietly sit down. Rhino are vegetarian and generally not aggressive but they are very large and perfectly capable of charging a rather small human if they feel threatened or cornered. They also do not have good eyesight, relying on sensing movement. So by sitting down, whilst we would have trouble getting out of the way of any attack, we were making it very much less likely that one would occur.

They knew we were there but with little movement or sound they couldn´t quite get a handle on us. They started to move closer.

Whilst they did not seem at all aggressive, they started getting a little too close and the Guide slammed his stick onto the ground in front of us. The rhinos jumped and ran a few meters down the road. Why are animals so afraid of people?? We are so small, we have no teeth or claws and are very weak in comparison to them. But none of them willingly take us on!

They didn´t go far though and Mum decided to have a lie down!

We were all standing a few metres down the path at this point by the bushes – me, James, our Guide and another visitor. I asked the Guide whether he would mind me approaching the rhino a little closer. He looked mildly surprised but gestured for me to go ahead.

So, whilst the three men stood well away from the two enormous, prehistoric animals, I gently made my way towards them.

The Guide leaned in to James and whispered ´she is very brave!¨ to which James replied ´nah, just a bit insane!´

But being on my own so close to these two was an experience I will remember forever. The power and yet the gentleness coming from them was awe-inspiring….

As always, the time came for us to leave them and head back to camp. We had spent so long with them that we were very late and the sun was coming down rapidly. It sank below the horizon just as we got back to Henry.

We spent another few days at Hlane and juggled our time between relaxing around the campsite and doing our own self-drive game drives. All the time we were there we could hear lions roaring and grunting all round us – it never ceased to send tingles down my spine.

And whilst on camp we had a constant companion, or rather poor Henry did!

Did he really dislike Landrovers so much, or did he think he was attacking another Woodpecker??

We saw plenty of elephants…

Mostly quietly munching on branches

But then we came across our old friend – the large, angry male! You can identify him from the fact he only has one tusk.

We all know elephants have long memories so as we watched him scraping his front foot in the dust I suggested we might want to leave pretty quickly.

But it seems he had found his lady and was rather more relaxed than he had been a couple of days before. Instead of scraping his foot ready to charge he was simply treating himself to a good old dust bath!

We also saw the hippos again, a little closer this time but still no more energetic….no impressive yawns today.

And back on camp our old friend reappeared yet again! Every day the same – no matter how many times we chased him off!

On our last day we decided to go into the northern part of the Park to try and find the Marabou Storks who were nesting in that area. We asked one of the guides where the nesting site was and were shown on the map. We slowly drove around the area for about an hour, straining to look in every tree, but saw nothing. We were so disappointed – we had got the impression there would be lots of them just sitting around waiting to be photographed.

Just as we had decided to give up and head back we turned a corner and saw hundreds of them and they really were just sitting there, in every tree, posing for the camera!