T Richards Bay Game Park

   After a few days in Richards Bay we had caught up on sleep and were ready for a trip to the Imfolozi game park.   The park is only a one and a half hour drive away. We shared a car rental with Erica and it was good to have Eric an experienced lefthand driver at the wheel. We had been warned that there was no guarantee we would see any wildlife, so were thrilled to spot so many animals and birds.   Driving down good roads we saw  giraffes, zebras, elephants, wildebeests, warthogs, numerous rhino's, a water buffalo, and lots of lion food like reedbuck, impala and kudu.  It was exciting to see all these animals in  their natural habitat.  Sometimes you had to really keep your eyes peeled and drive slow in order to spot them and other times they just walked out of the bush virtually in front of the car,
     The parks brochure said they have had a few elephant vehicle incidents and not to approach an elephant closer than 50 meters.  We wondered what 'incidents' meant. The first elephant we spotted was hiding in the bushes but later we sighted a couple more out in the open,  These two flared their ears as they moved towards us, so we quickly snapped a few pictures and drove on thinking they might be getting ready to charge. Our second day in the park was a big elephant day for us. Early in the morning we came upon a herd of elephants blocking the road and stopped behind several other vehicles to watch the parade. Eventually we moved on and went to find  another road to the blind/hide we wanted to visit. Not too far down our alternate route we again came upon elephants walking down the road. They were moving slowly and seemed to have no intention of going into the bush so we could get by. We turned the car around only to discover there were elephants coming onto the road behind us as well, so we were surrounded. Yikes, what do we do now?? Well, we pulled the car as far of the road as possible, turned the engine off and sat motionless. Some of the elephants went into the bush but two smaller ones were determined to use the road. They were very leery of us and would walk up to the car and then retreat. They did this several times before one of them finally went by. The other one just couldn't get his nerve up, but did go into the bush long enough for us to skedaddle out of there.  We later heard a story from a clerk at the rental car office and apparently an elephant had put it's tusks thru the side of her friends car and then lifted the vehicle. The Internet also has stories of elephants playing with cars, pushing them off the road or bumping and denting them.
   And then there was the dung beetles, not one of the big five but what amazing and entertaining creatures they are.  These beetles are about an inch long and will crawl into a pile of elephant dung and then carve out a ball about 4 inches in diameter, push it out of the dung pile and then roll it down the road and to a grassy spot to bury it and lay eggs. We loved watching them roll the dung ball down the road  with his mate resting, hanging onto the ball. (see video in picture section).
   The end of our second day in the park we left and drove over to St Lucia  to spend the night there. Just by chance, a group of young people did a Zulu singing/dance performance outside our restaurant, we really enjoyed watching them. The next morning we joined a two hour boat tour in the estuary and saw hippo's and crocodiles as well as lots of bird life.   Apparently at night the hippo's sometimes walk down the streets of the town and knock down fences to graze on the lawns. They don't recommend walking around the town after dark.. After a nice lunch at the St Lucia Ski-Boat Club and a stop at the craft market, it was time to head back to Richards Bay. This was an excellent trip for us and we look forward to having some more safari adventures.