Day 7 07.05.21
We sleep a bit longer, finally. We have a whole day driving ahead of us. Kim drives all day because I'm a bit scared of the roads. We drive through mountains and bad roads with a lot of potholes. We pass Amsterdam, but it isn't so nice as we expected it to be.
On the way we go shopping again, I search for some Koeksisters but they don't have them here. I hope I find it somewhere else this holiday.
We stay in Piet Retief. Very expensive camping compared to the others, but we are the only one here. It’s a small space and 5 campers can stand here. We make a burrito bowl for dinner.
Sundowner Lodge camp, 420 rand p/n
Day 8 08.05.21
Around 10 in the morning we are ready for another day of driving. We have lunch at KFC, but it is too spicy for me. I am very sad and only have my strawberry milkshake and a few fries. There where we had lunch nobody really cares about the Corona virus. Everybody is hanging together outside and having fun. Looks like they don't worry about the South-African mutation. I almost have the feeling the media is lying to us. South-Africa has at the moment almost no new cases (1500 a day).
Navigation says it is 4 hours to uMkhuze, but we drive a bit longer because of crappy roads. I think this road was the worst road I ever drove. Our navigation said it was a paved road, but it wasn’t. It feels like it takes ages, because we have to drive really slowly.
We arrive at uMkhuze game reserve at 15:30. We drive to the camp ground and find out it is abandoned. We ask some rangers where to go and they said we should ask at Mantuma resort. There was nobody at the reception. I already have a bit of panic in my head, what should we do now? Luckily the African people are very helpful and the lady of the Rhino take away made some phone calls for us. There is one Lodge free, we can take that for 900rand (60 CHF). It feels like it's almost destiny that this one is still available.
Today we eat leftovers for dinner, pasta Bolognese.
Day 9 09.05.21
We get up at 7 and drive around the park until 13:00. Didn't see a lot of animals. The park was still too green to see something, but we did see one giraffe, a few wild beasts and a lot of impala. But we did make a little accident. A little hill was going down too steep. The back of the Motorhome broke. Luckily, it's just the plastic that ripped apart and we can continue driving.
Then we are on our way to Sodwana bay, again on that unpaved road. But today the time flies and before we know it we already arrive. We are again the only one camping. We got a nice big grass field for ourselves.
We almost get stuck in the sand here because we had to turn around, but Kim is a good driver so we managed our way out.
As soon as we arrive we wash all our clothes, a little mistake because the sun is already going down. At least everything is clean now. Wet, but clean. We have to hang it in the camper overnight, we are scared the monkeys will steal our clothes.
For dinner Kim makes ratatouille, with cheese hot dogs.
Sodwana bay entrance fee 200 rand. Camp, 200 rand