Mtubatuba - Part 1

Brian Jackman, accredited as Britain's foremost writer on wildlife and safaris, beautifully suggested that

"everything in Africa bites, but the safari bug is worst of all"

Having just spent 6 weeks in Zululand, South Africa I wholeheartedly agree. 

Ben and I have arrived in Harare, Zimbabwe following a wonderful stay with his cousins in Mtubatuba and I remembered we need to get you up to speed. So let me fill you in on the basics. Mtubatuba is a town two hours up the coast from Durban where the prominent business is sugar cane farming. With a population of about 27,000 people it, like many other semi-rural towns in the area, is exposed to poverty, crime and joblessness. But do not let that deceive you, despite being hindered by load shedding (restricted electricity) and severe drought the people we met were welcoming, supportive and extremely generous.  

We went to stay with Kristy, Ben's cousin, her husband Dylan and their two adorable children, Jonathan (5) and Abigail (3). Dylan's is Mtuba's finest Methodist minister and Kristy runs a pre-school at the church and has just finished working at Africa Centre, an organisation researching population studies and HIV/AIDS development. Both kids are in pre-school but thankfully shortly after we arrived schools broke up for the South African summer holidays.

The motley crew!

We arrived in Mtuba on the 3rd December and the next day we headed off on the most amazing safari weekend you can imagine. The 6 of us headed to the Zululand Rhino Reserve, a private game reserve two hours north of Mtuba. We stayed in a luxury tented 'lodge' which is not normally open to the public but as Dylan conducted a wedding for the family we were blessed to enjoy a 2 night all inclusive stay including two game drives per day - all for absolutely NOTHING!! The lodge was made up of luxury tents (think glamping), a lounge area, a bar and NO FENCES - meaning anything, from lion, rhino to inyala could come visit us. It's safe to say we went from tent to tent in pairs - just in case! Each morning we set off as dawn broke for a breathtaking drive around the reserve. Led by Julian (the greatest guide ever) we spotted a number of giraffe, zebra, rhino, buffalo and wildebeest. As expected we saw hundreds and hundreds of 'buck' or antelope - however I was taken aback at the variety, their beauty and distinguishing features.

Ben reading at the lodge with female Inyala drinking from a watering hole behind him

Two male giraffe

A male Inyala

Female Zebra with a young calf

The whole weekend was overwhelmingly rewarding but my highlights have to be spotting 7 lions - 2 lone males and 2 other males with 3 females as part of a pride. Nothing could have prepared me for the majestic beauty of the lions, and watching one male walk calmly straight past our open top safari vehicle is an experience I'll never forget.

Probably as close as Ben wanted him to get!

The King in the thickets

A lone male lion at dusk

Chilled out beyond belief - the 3 females were just left of the photo

We were blessed to see many rhino, but even more blown away to spot the rare and extremely sought after black rhino just 20 meters or so away from our car.

A group of White Rhino crossing in front of the car

On our last drive of the weekend we happened upon a stampede of antelope, buck and zebra - even my safari naivety could tell that something was chasing them, just what we wanted to find out. Less than 2 minutes of investigating nearby tracks we came across a pack of wild dogs tucking into a fresh catch. Their victim, a female Kudu. Sitting in silence watching these beautiful dogs behave so 'wild' as the African sun rose made the hairs on my neck stand up. I still cannot comprehend how fortunate we were to observe such a rare sighting.

The pack had made the kill on the left bank then dragged the Kudu it to the road to eat

Once they had eaten they seemed to 'play' before leaving the carcass for the scavengers to come

Our weekend finished with a visit to the Bayete Zulu Elephant Interaction as part of Dylan's 30th birthday celebration. Picture this: you get an opportunity to meet and feed three African elephants, Rambo, Rachel and their 5 year old baby Jabulani. Rambo and Rachel were born in Zimbabwe and unfortunately their herd were part of a culling operation. However the men sent out to kill these elephants did not capture 3 babies effectively, instead when they had finished for the day and set up camp in the bush these 3 cheeky baby elephants came back into camp to explore. These men created a bond with the 3 and could not bring themselves to shoot them, instead they took them to a reserve which had a large emphasis on human interaction. When Rambo and Rachel, two of these babies, now full grown adults, were bought to South Africa they were introduced into the Zululand Rhino Reserve as wild elephants with the hope they would integrate with the established breeding herd. However, as time went on these two elephants got pretty disruptive and showed an obvious desire to be around humans - unsurprising as that's all they had known. So Bayete Zulu came up with a solution. Every day these elephants could come, voluntarily, to a space where humans would feed and learn all about them then they would go roam for the rest of the day / night, just like wild elephants. We were delighted and very much in awe to be able to feed Rachel and Jabulani, touch Rambo's ears, behind his tusks, between his front legs and feel his slimy tongue. It was magical.

Making friends with Jambo (this was after I had my hand in his mouth!)

Feeding Rachel

Smiles all round with Rachel and Jabulani in the background

Having had the most wonderful, surreal, money can't buy weekend it was back to reality and time to settle into Mtuba life. This really isn't the tough daily grind that one might expect, instead our December was full of school Christmas parties, home groups, golf competitions, bowls matches and a lot of swimming! We enjoyed two birthday parties, Abigail's 3rd Frozen themed birthday party (in 40 degree heat) and Dylan's 30th hosted by a lovely local couple involving 120 people, a lamb spit and clay pigeon shooting.

The birthday girl with her homemade Frozen cake

My attempt at clay pigeon shooting

Ben, Jono and Dylan goofing around underwater

(Ben would just like to interject that the above mentioned golf tournament was held at the local country club on 16th December, a national holiday in South Africa. The tournament is an annual event put on by a local family as a charity fundraiser and was an enormous amount of fun, albeit with not the highest quality of golf displayed. Our fourball, consisting of myself, Dylan and two of his friends were the last group to tee off, and although we didn't confirm officially, we think the last also on the leader-board. To be fair though, I have never played 18 holes of golf before, especially in 30 degree heat, so I just considered finishing the course a victory! I was happy to have stayed within the boundaries of the electric fences, and to not encounter any snakes whilst off hunting for my wayward shots amongst the bush.)

The famous fourball

Over 6 weeks we were made to feel part of the local community and were shown an enormous amount of generosity. One example is when Mark Classen, a local chaplain for the Mission to Seafarers offered us the opportunity to accompany him on a ship visit. We headed to Richards Bay Port which happens to be the largest coal export facility in Africa. Following a couple of security clearances Mark drove myself, Ben and Dylan to a 22,424 ton tanker vessel which was in the process of loading up numerous different chemicals to transport back to Antwerp, Belgium. Mark visits the crew on these container ships to share the gospel, to encourage those who are already committed to the faith and to explain the variety of support that the Seafarers Mission offer. We were invited to take a tour of the ship by the Captain, he personally showed us the bridge, the engine room, the captains offices and the crew's quarters. We can't thank Mark enough for allowing us to tag onto his ship visits as we saw a side to an industry only a few get to see.

The ship!

Feeling quite at home in control - next to the Captain

In the boiling hot engine rooms

As some of you may have seen Dylan also took Ben and I to see one of the rural churches that is under his ministry. Madwaleni is located 20 minutes outside of Mtubatuba. Sadly our visit was not a happy one as we observed how recently the congregation had been struck with devastation as the church had collapsed. Although part of the structure remained the tin roof, rotten wooden beams and cracked floor made for an extremely unsafe and unusable church. Ben and I felt moved to try and help this church and their situation so just before Christmas we set up a 'go fund me' page asking for any donations to help rebuild this church.
We were blown away by the generosity of those who have already donated and we want to say a MASSIVE thank you to anyone who has taken the time to give. We have passed on the money already donated to the church and we will update you when building starts!

The two of us smiling in the church despite the many creaking sounds!

(Of course we are still welcoming donations, just follow this link -  GoFundMe - rebuild Madwaleni)

In previous blog posts we have made reference to our desire to stay longer in South Africa than we were initially given. With a British passport we were given a visitors permit to enjoy 90 days in the country, however details as to how to extend this proved misleading and confusing. One potential avenue was to go across a border and come back a couple of days later. Having discussed this with Dylan and Kristy we decided it could be worth a shot. We left on an impromptu trip to Mozambique on the 17th and stayed in a semi-luxury tent campsite in a place called Malongane just up the coast from Ponta do Ouro. Although it is literally just over the border with SA it took a while to reach our camp as the roads are better recognised by us Brits as sand dunes - explaining the requirement for a 4x4 when crossing the border! Having left the kids at home with grandparents Dylan, Kristy, Ben and I enjoyed a wonderful two days of relaxing on white sandy beaches, swimming in crystal blue seas and enjoying a deserved R'n'R (a Mozambique drink that consists of 3/4 rum and 1/4 raspberry juice - it packs a punch and makes a good game of 30 Seconds even more competitive)!

Enjoying beach life in Mozambique

Not sure we'd do this Mozambican excursion - especially if R'n'R's are involved!

On our second night we headed down to the private beach that was attached to our camp as there was mention of turtles laying. Guided only by the moonlight we took a short walk down the beach in the hope we may just stumble upon a turtle. Thanks to Dylan's persistence we decided to walk on to the next dune before heading home. It wasn't until we had given up all hope and were walking back to find our car did we spot her. Coming just out of the water we watched as she climbed steady but surely up the bank on to the dune. Once she had found a spot suitable for laying she proceeded to dig, then turned and lay. We kept as much distance as our excitement and the moonlight would allow, fearful that if we spooked her she would return to the ocean. She crawled up to the top of the dune right where the bush joined the sand then when all was okay she turned and started her journey back to the sea. Local turtle spotters attempt to mark all the laying spots to keep an eye on the babies, however only time will tell how many of her young hatch and make it to the sea next February. I cannot put into words how incredible our timing and her movements were, but let me just say that sat there on the warm sand watching a loggerhead (we think) turtle by moonlight lay her eggs on a deserted beach bought about tears and a sense of thankfulness for this wonderful earth.

Mumma Turtle heading back to the ocean (following her own tracks made on the way up the beach)

Unfortunately Ben and I were not able to extend our stay as the border officials did not seem keen to give us another stamp, however reflecting on our brief fling across the border the four of us would never suggest it was a waste of time.

It's here that I hand over to Ben for the second part of our Mtuba stay. He'll update you on our family Christmas and our reunion with handsome baby Oliver. So for now goodbye, thanks for reading, we hope you have a fantastic new year!

Love Melissa x