Anneka Rice Comes Face to Face With a Monarch in KwaZulu-Natal

By ANNEKA RICE

There are dangerous spiders in the bush,’ said our guide as we drove through the Alibizia trees. ‘Which bush?’ asked my eight-year- old son Sam, his eyes darting over the bushes stretching for miles in every direction.

Our journey to Thonga Beach Lodge, in the Greater St Lucia Wetland Park in Northern KwaZulu-Natal, was an adventure in itself.

After a nine-hour flight from London and three hours by car from Richard’s Bay airport, Sam, Thomas, 17, Josh, 15, and I stopped at a cashew factory to rendezvous with our next driver, and were now embarked on an exhilarating dune drive in a 4×4.

We rumbled past giraffes and monkeys until we came to our wilderness camp: a clutch of thatched lodges tucked into the forest, right on a deserted beach at Mabibi.

Thonga is the first tourist concession in this stunning wilderness. Its owners, Isibindi Africa, spent nine years planning and negotiating with the local Mabibi community before the lodge opened in 2004. The locals own 68 per cent of the development, and conservation and tourism have created jobs, schools, clinics and roads in this previously isolated community.

The lodges mix bush basic with delicious-luxury. You can sit on your balcony-looking over the tree tops at the monkeys, your air- conditioned room just behind you. The crashing surf is hidden behind the dense trees.

After sunset the camp was plunged into darkness. Finding the bar was a torchlight expedition and supper a laidback affair (‘we went fishing today so it’s fish’). The boys used the torch to see what they were eating, and plan the next day all activities are organised and booked at the bar.

On our first morning, Sam and I set up a tented bed on the deserted beach.

Other guests may have been walking or birding, kayaking on Lake Sibaya or fishing we saw nobody.

Then a Jeep appeared pulling a boat behind it and lithe bodies sprang off it.

Two hunks strode down the beach in wet suits and my heart swelled as I realised it was Thomas and Josh, who’d opted for scuba diving.

This coastline rivals the Great Barrier Reef for diving and has more than 1,200 species of tropical and subtropical fish, plus dolphins and whales.

Thomas booked again, while the rest of us went in the 4×4 for sundowners at Lake Sibaya. It’s breathtaking to witness an African sunset with hippos trundling out of the water to feed.

We left the following day for Phinda Private Game Reserve, a three-hour drive away and part of this vast, ecologically rich region of Maputaland.

Phinda is Zulu for ‘the return’, and its 17,000 hectares of what was once misused farmland are now restored to their rightful heritage. As at Thonga, tourism here helps to fund the conservation.

We stayed at Mountain Lodge, one of six luxurious lodges here. We looked out on to bushveld and the Ubombo mountain range.

Within two hours we were heading out on our first game drive with ranger Mike Kirkman and Tom Ncele, the Zulu tracker. Mike explained the conservation programme, which includes giving elephants contraceptives.

From our Jeep we spotted white rhino, giraffes, wild boar and zebras, but the real highlight was finding a family of lions resting at a waterhole.

Then we picked up Seth Vorster who heads the leopard research programme at Phinda. He was monitoring a young leopardess, Ntonby, rejected as a cub, and was tracking her by her GPS collar.We saw her as night fell, padding along a path.

On our return, a candlelit path led us through trees to a clearing where there was a bush feast for lodge guests.

Next stop was a friend’s 50th birthday party near Balito, about three hours down the coast. This is where the 19th Century King Shaka established a military camp and legend has it that he threw any disloyal soldiers over the rocks to the sharks. Zulus are notoriously polite and rudeness would have merited the same treatment. Coincidentally, I sat opposite the present King of the Zulus, King Goodwill, a direct descendant of Shaka along with a few armed bodyguards at the birthday party. I was very polite.

The boys and I decided to visit the battlefields of the Anglo- Zulu wars. My sons are great-great-nephews of Lieutenant Coghill, who was awarded a posthumous Victoria Cross after the famous Battle of Isandlwana.

We headed for Fugitive’s Drift, a luxurious lodge on the Buffalo River gorge with commanding views of the sphinx-shaped Mountain of Isandlwana and the Oskarsberg at Rorke’s Drift, the two most famous battlefields in the area’s history.

The lodge was owned by David Rattray, the renowned storyteller and authority on Zulu wars who was murdered in his own home a few weeks ago.

We sadly never met him while we were there last year as he was lecturing overseas, but his passion for Zulu history and his championing of Zulu causes has touched tens of thousands of people all over the world.

We set out after lunch with Rob Caskie, our guide. He told us a story of compassion-and reconciliation, of the loss of the old Zulu warrior, of nobility and spirit on both sides. We were at the base of the peak of Isandlwana, the site of the biggest defeat, in 1879, the British ever had in their imperial career.

Our Zulu guide, Joseph Ndima, took us to the graves of Lieutenants Coghill and Melvill. He showed us where on the Buffalo River they plunged their horses, trying to escape to Natal, clinging to the Queen’s Colour of the 24th Regiment.

As Joseph ruefully said: ‘They died for Queen and country, which was a shame as Queen Victoria didn’t even know Zululand existed.’ This hadn’t just been a battle tale, it had been a story about the loss of the old Zulu warrior, which shaped the history of South Africa.

It took me some way closer to understanding this beautiful, conflict-scarred country which, thanks to cooperative developments such as Thonga, Phinda and Fugitive’s Drift, is finding sustainable ways to rebuild its heritage.

Getting there

Definitive Africa (0161 929 5151, www.definitive-africa.com) offers tailormade itineraries to South Africa. A sevennight holiday costs from Pounds 1,990 including all flights, car hire, two nights all-inclusive at Phinda Mountain Lodge, two nights fullboard at Thonga Beach Lodge and two nights full-board at Fugitive’s Drift Lodge inclusive of a daylong battlefield tour.

The escorted tour guide

The escorted tour guide MARJORIE YUE picks out some of 2007′s most exciting escorted tours . . .

Wine tasting in Chilean wineyards,a cruise across Lake Titicaca and train to Machu Picchu ruins are included in Saga’s 16-day Treasures Of The New World tour also including Bolivia.From Pounds 2,299pp including return flights (0800 414 444 or www.saga.co.uk/ travelshop).

Experience’Fire Ice’ from Leger Holidays (0845 408 0769, www.leger.co.uk) with Etna and Stromboli volcanos and Grossglockner Glacier in Austria on this 16-day tour, from Pounds 1,195.

Travelsphere (0800 19 14 18, www.travelsphere.co.uk), 30 this year, has action-packed tours such as the ten-day adventure to Zambia and Botswana including game drives, Victoria Falls and a Zambezi river cruise. From Pounds 1,745pp.

The 14-day Great American Railtour fromTitan HiTours (0845 375 0275, www.titantravel.co.uk) crosses Arizona, New Mexico and Colorado to Denver with excursions including the Grand Canyon. From Pounds 1,675pp including flights.

On Page Moy’s nine-day Essence Of Oman tour you can see green turtles come ashore to nest, take a four-wheel drive and sleep in palm-leaf huts. From Pounds 1,349pp including return flights (call 08708 334012 or visit www.pageandmoy.com).

(c) 2007 Mail on Sunday; London (UK). Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. All rights Reserved.