Day 17 – Hluhluwe-iMfolozi Park to Mbabane, Swaziland – 25 September

We left Mpila nice and early for the trek to Mbabane in Swaziland – and some more game viewing in the park! Today was going to be a long day on the road and I even packed sandwiches and coffee before we set off. As we were loading up the car we got overrun by some vervet monkeys who tried to intimidate us so we had to be quite careful. A couple of women pulled up in the parking area next to us and told us about a lion kill just outside the camp – that made us pack up even faster! We left about 8am and found the lions just outside the camp. They were quite far away unfortunately, and once again I was very glad I bought some binoculars before the trip.

We spent a bit of time watching the lions eat and muck about before driving on. We also saw a baby rhino, which was very cute, and our only tortoise of the park crossing the road. We were out of the park before twelve and got on the N2 for the trip to the border, which was uneventful, with just very, very dry kilometres of veld.

We crossed the border into Swaziland at Golelo and the first part of the trip was very dull – flat and boring, though the roads were good, apart from the obligatory cow, donkey or goat in the road. The scenery completely changed for the last part of the trip when we got closer to Mbabane, to a more mountainous terrain. The area around Mbabane is really pretty but unfortunately it was cold and rainy so we didn’t get very good views. We checked into the Mountain Inn and had dinner at their restaurant – buffet for me! Everything was pretty good and it helped that they had decent internet!