Week 20 – Bhanga Nek

Where is Bhanga Nek exactly? Well it’s definitely not a easy place to find. Basically if you head north along the coast towards the Mozambique border there are a series of estuarine lakes, which form part of the Greater St. Lucia Wetlands Park. Bhanga Nek is the spit of land which separates the sea from the lakes. It’s a very out of the way place with access from Manguzi settlement down a series of seriously rough roads which turn into deep sandy tracks. It’s only accessible by 4WD vehicles and you can see why. It takes low range with diff lock on to get up some of the hills and we were frequently stuck in deep sand which required reversing back and taking a run up.

Having booked a campsite a long time back (since it’s the busiest time for SA) I had neglected to ever get proper directions, ok I thought there would be a sign. After about 2 hours driving around thick dune forest I realised I was wrong! Having apologised to Sandra we drive around a bit more until finally we found signs to another lodge - a twenty minute drive later we found a beautiful camp in the forest. The owners drew us a map in the sand and told us just to keep to the main road (that’s the one with the deepest ruts obviously!!) and ask for Betty and Georges’ place. Job done we found the campsite 40 minutes later.

The camp was truly beautiful set in a dune forest and on the edge of the largest lake. It’s also very remote, there were a couple of other people using the campsite but we couldn’t see or hear them at night. The ablution block was cold water showers in a reed enclosure open to the forest above. At night we had the bush babies in the trees above us and in the morning the monkeys. One for Ulovane readers (especially Erica as I know you like them) when it rained one evening I managed to track down a bushveld rain frog which I duly extracted from its burrow and photographed, they are fat little frogs which mate by gluing themselves to each other and burrowing into the ground. The tadpoles hatch in a chamber underground and not any where near the water.

The highlight definitely has to be the beach, around 16km of white sand and crystal blue Indian ocean, fantastic snorkelling around a reef where we saw kingfish, barracuda and a massive octopus which took exception to me and inked me (Sandra even told me that I scream like a girl underwater). I even managed to catch 5 fish on the fly by wading out into the surf and casting back to shore, mostly small wave garrick but great fun on a light rod. As well as being a great beach it’s also a turtle sanctuary where loggerhead and leatherback turtles nest. The beach is cleared at night but we joined a couple of night walks with local guides. You walk in total darkness down the beach, with only the stars and phosphorescence in the sand to light the way, its balmy and a truly beautiful experience, and yes we saw a turtle laying eggs (in fact 4 of them in one night!). The only downside was that Sandra managed to wrap a number of jellyfish (bluebottles) tentacle around her foot and was in agony, obviously I couldn’t leave her in pain and did the necessary. Did I get a thank you? No, all she said was “it’s so warm”!! I’m sure you know the emergency drill for jellyfish stings, but in case you don’t there is a much better way than the emergency drill as you can use a small aloe which grows on most beaches, I think Sandra would agree that it’s a much better option!

SANDRA
One morning while deciding to tidy up the back seat of the car, Matt screamed that we had a snake in the car, and more importantly it was a puff adder as he could hear it hissing at him. I walked around the car to stand by him, and see if I could hear anything. Sure enough there was a hissing sound which we’d never heard before. Then it hissed again, and again. Matt has now decided that he must find it as he’s not getting in the car whilst it’s there, so he starts flinging things out of the car, through the air and onto the sandy floor. At this point I’ve realised that this is a very peculiar snake as its hisses are very regular. The penny then drops. I walk to the front seat and unplug the converter (it plugs into the cigarette lighter and allows us to use the second battery to charge our laptop, cameras etc). The hissing stops!!! As it was such a hot day, the internal fan of the converter was spinning making the hissing sound! Matt still hasn’t lived it down.

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