To Swaziland and Hlane NP

The back roads of Kruger.

A beautiful male lion.

Dung beetles - at last!

Masked weaver birds.

It is amazing what these birds can do without hands.

Our guide for our walking safari, please read the sign.

He found us an antlion, which lives in a small hole and preys on ants.

A crested Guinea fowl.

A beautiful Blue Headed Agamal lizard.

Part of the weaver bird colony.

Tuesday, November 28^th.

We were up with the noisy birds, packed up and had breakfast by 5:30. Then we loaded up and went for our last game drive on the way out of Kruger. I sat up front with Colin, our driver, as the back seat wasn't the best for viewing. Colin took us on a dirt road loop near the camp because he had heard a leopard last night, but no such luck. When we joined the main road a woman in a car told us there were two male lions laying just off the road. We had to drive past them twice before we found them. Jay calls them flat cats when they are asleep and says they are impossible to see like that. But luckily we did and they sat up so we got a couple of good shots before we moved on. We also saw a couple of white rhinos and elephants. I also noticed a dung beetle rolling a ball of elephant poop across the road. I got Colin to stop so I could photograph it. I told him I had been in Africa to many places but never seen a dung beetle. He couldn't believe it and said they are everywhere. Right after that we saw many more and when we got to the park exit there were dozens of them doing their thing. Famine and then feast. I took a couple of videos for the blog later.

We drove out the park exit and immediately you could see the human impact. There were large sugar cane fields everywhere. The farming here is industrial scale. We drove about a half hour to a supermarket where we bought our picnic lunch again and Jay bought the ingredients for tonight's dinner. Then we continued on for a couple of hours to the Swaziland border. We got stamped out of South Africa and into Swaziland without problem. Then we re-boarded the truck and drove another couple of hours past numerous sugar cane plantations to our new campsite Ndlovu Camp in Hlane National Park.

Swaziland is a small landlocked country that is surrounded by South Africa on the north, west and south and Mozambique on the east. It has 1.3 million people. It is 200 km north to south and 130 west to east. The polygamous king is said to use as much as £31.7m of Swaziland's annual budget to sustain an estimated 24 children and 14 wives in 13 lavish palaces. Three of the king's wives have fled his kingdom in recent years, citing emotional and physical abuse. They have a prime minister which indicates a democracy but apparently he doesn't have much power.

We set up camp and had some time to relax, and eat our lunch. I had a shower and then watched the hundreds of masked weaver birds that are making their nests here. The noise and activity is quite amazing.

At 3:00 we went on a two hour game walk through the park. This park is divided up into three sections. We walked through a short section of the elephant, rhino and antelope section, but didn't see anything, and then crossed through a gate into the main section that has giraffe, antelope and other safe animals. The lions are in a third section and as I am sitting here typing on a picnic table in the dark, I can hear them bellowing loudly, so they are not too far away. We walked through the bush with our guide who told us about types of types, dung beetles and other bugs. The only animals we saw were three crested Guinea fowl and an mother impala with fawn in tow, but it was nice to walk along the trails listening to the birds and looking for animals.

When we got back I sat at the camp water hole talking to Henning from Germany who is just finishing a year long trip. We saw a couple of water buck come to the water hole and a fish eagle having a bath in it.

Then we headed back to the campsite for another great dinner by Jay. We ate in the dark and sat around talking for a bit before we headed to reception for a local tribal dance group, which was pretty good. Then off to bed.