Page 22 - Dainfern Precinct Living Issue 7_2023

Travel
Initiative
THE GATHERING

PLACE OF

ANIMALS

ary and I decided to explore the little-known Royal
Jozini Private Game Reserve in eSwatini’s south-
eastern corner. Its main attraction, apart from the
M‘Big Five’, is its position on the banks of the Jozini
Dam, a most underrrated stretch of water bordering South
Africa and the Kingdom of eSwatini.

We were advised to enter the little kingdom – it is the smallest
nation in the Southern Hemisphere – via its Mahamba border
gate, a gate we hadn’t heard of before. The route from
Gauteng passes through the sulphuric powerhouse of South
Africa with its vast coalfields and giant power stations, each big
enough to light up the entire Eastern Cape.

It was 9.00am and the route-finder assured us that the N17,
by-passing Springs, passing through Kinross and Trichard to
Ermelo, was the fastest route. Once through Ermelo, the N2
begins – the N2, that’s the 2 000km highway that takes one
right around South Africa’s eastern and southern perimeter to
the Western Cape.

After 100km of a landscape darkened by pines and eucalyptus
plantations that, from horizon to horizon, obliterate the real
South Africa, one reaches the town of Piet Retief, now called
eMkhondo whose name means ‘assegai’ – a reminder that one
was now entering Nguni country.

We were pleasantly surprised to find eMkhondo was within
a short drive of the Mahamba border post. The tarred road,
running from the frontier through the hilly countryside along
the South African border, is well-maintained and must hold the
Guinness Book of Records for having absolutely no directional
signs. Not one. We had to ask people whether we were on the
road to Lavumisa where we knew we had to turn for the short
drive north to the Royal Jozini Game Reserve.

Zebra festooned with red-billed oxpeckers The little town of Lavumisa ends at another border post –
Golela, which means ‘gathering place of animals’. The name
could hardly be more appropriate for it is at the centre of a
vast international agglomeration of major game reserves. One
chain of private and provincial reserves stretches south down
to the big thornveld reserves of Mkuzi, iMfolozi, Hluhluwe,
Phinda and, on the coast, the iSimangaliso Wetland Park and
St Lucia; and then north to the Ndumo Game Reserve and
Tembe Elephant Reserve which in turn meld with reserves in
Mozambique.

We booked into the Royal Jozini Private Reserve, where we
occupied a large and quite luxurious family lodge – it’s one of
a few lodges tucked into the thick bush and within a stone’s
throw of the banks of the Jozini Dam. There were noisy
hippo, and crocodiles patrolling the banks. Birdlife was hugely
varied. There were lions around, though one rarely saw them.
We caught sight of elephant and, cruising on the lake on a
Giraffe in front of our lodge in the Royal Jozini Private Game catamaran belonging to nearby Kujabula Lodge, we saw a lot of
Reserve with the Lebombo Mountains in the background wildlife on the South African shore, including rhino.

22 DPL issue 7 2023