They say only mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the midday sun. We had already been up since 5.45am having been for a dawn landrover safari which was amazing. We saw buffalo, giraffes, impala, rhinos, baboons, hippos and wildebeests. The safari was based at Mhkaya in Swaziland, a game reserve with several huge fenced areas, keeping the more toothy animals away from the accommodation area where we had our own cottage with no walls and bathroom views out into the bush! We thought the foot safari would be a bimble locally around the camp, perhaps catching a glimpse of a few birds and one or two impala but we were back in the land rover. Confused we bounced along and through the gate into the toothy part of the reserve. Holly was transferred into another land rover as she wasn’t allowed on the walk and we carried on deeper into the reserve.
Eventually we stopped and after a briefing in off we went on foot, wondering what toothy creature might be hiding behind the next bush. Our guide was a great tracker and kept up a fast pace as the sun beat down on us, though his gait looked slow and relaxed. Soon the hand signals indicated that we stop and as we crept around a bush were treated to the slightly scary but fantastic sight of 3 white rhino walking towards us only 25 metres away.
He made sure we did not get between them and where they wanted to go and tracked them for about 10 minutes. After a while we pulled back and pushed off further into the bush where he explained the various flora and their historic uses.
Towards the end of our 2 hour trek we came across a watering hole and together with the original 3 there were another two white rhino enjoying a drink.
The 24 hours we spent at Mhkaya were amazing, a brilliant laid back and budget safari, our only disappointment not seeing any of the African elephants, though how something that big can hide I will never know.
http://www.biggameparks.org/mkhaya/