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Published: November 15th 2012
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St.Lucia was my next destination after Durban. St. Lucia is a small beachside town, which is situated by an extremely unique estuary where crocodiles, hippos and sharks all live. It is also at the southern tip of the iSimangaliso National Park and is close to Cape Vidal, inside the NP, which is an incredible stretch of coastline.
However, getting out of Durban proved to be quite a challenge. After getting some wrong information from my hostel (Happy Hippo – to be avoided) about, which bus station to go to, it took me 3 minibus-taxis and about an hour and a half to find a bus going to the wonderfully named Mthubathuba. From here I got another minibus (one of the worst and most packed I had been on in all of Africa) the short distance to St. Lucia.
As it was off season, St. Lucia was fairly quiet. There were also barely any backpackers as this part of South Africa isn’t on the ‘BazBus’ route. The ‘BazBus’ is an overpriced bus that the majority of backpackers use when travelling in South Africa. It picks people up from theor hostel and drops them at the next
hostel. Most people I had met using it complained about its erratic schedule and the length of time the journeys took. They also justified using it by believing the nonsense that it was dangerous to use the public transport. I got quite a few looks of wide eyed astonishment from other travellers, when I said I was travelling by the local minibuses – the most shocked were the white South Africans!
I didn’t do a whole lot the first day I arrived as it was late afternoon by the time I had arrived and set up my tent. The next day, I decided to try and make my way to Cape Vidal, inside the iSimangaliso NP. At first I had hoped to cycle the 31km, but this plan was scuppered as they do not let cyclists in with buffaloes, rhinos and leopards inhabiting the park. Instead, I began walking to the entrance, when I got a lift to the park gate on the back of a pick-up from some staff that worked at the Crocodile Centre.
I didn’t have to wait long until a truck delivering Simba Crisps to a shop at Cape Vidal,
stopped at the entrance and agreed to give me a lift. Inside the park, it is a tarred road all the way to Cape Vidal, but we saw some wildlife along the way, especially a lot of kudu. We also came across two black rhinos right at the side of the road. I had seen white rhinos at Shamwari, but this well and truly completed the ‘Big 5’ for me. As I was already getting a free lift from the guys in the truck, I didn’t feel like I should ask them if they could stop for a photo opportunity, so I didn’t get a picture.
They dropped me off about 100m from Cape Vidal beach and the walkway down was teaming with vervet monkeys and mongoose (mongeese?). The beach was stunning and I was lucky that it was quite a nice day, so I spent a few hours there and went for a walk up along the dunes as well. When I finished at the beach, I had to try and blag a lift back to the gate of the park. I had to be out by 6 p.m. or I would be fined. Luckily, pretty
much the first car I asked was a Dutch couple who agreed to take me.
I got even luckier, as they weren’t going straight to the entrance, but wanted to go for little drive through the park before they left and see what animals they could and then watch the sunset. This was like a bonus safari for me. We saw plenty of wildlife in a very short space of time – kudu, zebra, buffalo, wildebeest and I even spotted two more black rhinos, even though they were quite far away. But I managed to get a picture this time. We watched the sunset from a bird hide and also spotted a crocodile, whilst there. The Dutch couple dropped me back to St Lucia, where I was very happy with my day on the beach and on a mini safari, which had cost me the entrance fee to the park of 35 rand (€3.50).
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