St. Lucia

On our way from Selati to St Lucia we took a detour down through Kruger national park. At Selati we'd seen animals at a distance, and we thought it might be cool to see some animals closer up at Kruger. On the first day we almost had a run in with a moody elephant when it crossed the road and we got a bit close, then later we almost ran over a small pride of lions who were sleeping on the edge of the road. We could have leaned out the window and touched them, it's hard to remember that these animals could really mess you up.



We spent 2 nights in Kruger, the first night at a stop called Setara and the second night at Pretoriaskop (my spelling of place names is probably way wrong, sorry). I was surprised how cheap Kruger was, they have a captured audience so they could charge whatever they want for things but its pretty reasonable, even for lowly backpackers like us. Unfortunately Kruger does feel a bit like Disneyland or maybe a large zoo (which it is I suppose) - the animals are so used to traffic and people that they hardly even look up. It does feel a bit fake at times, but at least we can get a really close view.


After Kruger we made a long drive through Neilspruit, around Swaziland, then along the coast to St Lucia. I'd have really liked to have visited Swaziland on the way, but the hire car companies charge an arm and a leg for taking cars to other countries so we couldn't really afford it. Eventually we arrived at St Lucia, which is a small bit of land between the Indian ocean and an estuary so they get all sorts of wildlife. In fact its been heritage listed and is (if I believe the posters) the only pace in the world where you get the largest land and sea mammals in the same area (i.e. elephants and whales). It feels like a beach side holiday town, very similar to Lorne or Victor Harbor. Its a nice spot to fill in a few days until we leave for Europe.



Most days we get up pretty early then jump in the car and drive through the national park to a place called Cape Vidal, it has some stunning beaches and some good spots for snorkelling. Along the way we've seen lots of Rhino and antelope in the national park, still yet to see elephants (or whales for that matter). We'd seen a lot of sun at Selati so we were both already pretty brown, but there is something about the sun in St Lucia that just burns, so we both got bit burned at the beach, even through lots of SPF 30 sunblock.



We've heard lots of news about Zimbabwe on the car radio while we've been here, every day the number of people confirmed with cholera increases. We heard yesterday that the leaders of other countries (UK mainly I think) are talking about removing Mugabe because he's useless. Most of the people here think he should have been taken out of power a long time ago.