We were hoping to meet up with the authors of a favorite travel blog - www.travelin-tortuga.com while we were both in Africa. We did! We enjoyed a two day visit with Rick and Kathy in Golden Gate National Park in the Drakensberg Mountains. This was our second visit to the park, but this with fall color, well worth a second look. We thoroughly enjoyed meeting Rick and Kathy and hope to meet up some time in the future. Rick and Kathy suggested we had time for a visit to Hluhluwe-Ifolozi Park before going to Durban. We had passed on visiting the park in January, but are very glad we saw it this time. We didn't see near the animals that we have seen in other parks, but the scenery is wonderful. It was more mountainous then other parks we have visited.
 |
| View of Golden Gate National Park from the Echo Canyon trail. |
 |
| Echo Canyon trail - We were camped next to the trail head. |
 |
| Echo Canyon - Good echos in there. |
 |
| Looking out from Echo Canyon. |
 |
| View of the mountains at sunset from our camp site. |
 |
| Looking toward Echo Canyon from our camp site. |
 |
| Fall color in Golden Gate NP |
 |
| View of Golden Gate NP from a game drive. |
 |
| Jackels eating at the vulture hide. There were 3 jackels but no vultures. |
 |
| Nelson Mandela sculpture at the Howick capture site. |
 |
| Different view of Nelson Mandela sculpture. |
 |
| Game drive road in Hluhluwe-Imfolozi Park. This road was narrow but it was paved. Nice change from corrigated dusty dirt roads! |
 |
| Zebra |
 |
| Giraffe |
 |
| Giraffe expressing how she felt about having her photo taken. |
 |
| Impala |
 |
| Rhino - We saw quite a few rhinos, but they were always eating so their heads were down. |
 |
| Buffalo with his two bird companions. |
 |
| It was time to leave the park for the night and we got stuck in a buffalo jam. They were just hanging out in the middle of the road. As soon as this group decided to move more flowed on. It took at least 20 minutes for all of them to move on. We had to drive to our camp site after dark, something you don't do in Africa, to many road hazards. |
 |
| Elephant - This was the biggest elephant we have seen in all of Africa. He was larger then the van. We spotted him walking down the road very fast straight at us. He was not moving to the side of the road. Lucky for us there was a dirt road to turn on to. The car behind us began moving in reverse very fast. |
 |
| View of Hluhluwe-Imfolozi Park |
