This is how dry the park was.
The highlight of the day was seeing this guy cross the road in front of us and head off into the bushes. We stopped the car and turned off the engine and then we were rewarded with him crossing again in front of the car back to the other side of the road. Several people passed us but never saw him. The leopard has such good camouflage when he is is the trees. At first we thought that he had gone away but he stood so still and blended in and when he flicked the end of his tail we were able to see him.
We were delighted to see a hornbill as the first time we had ever seen any was when we were in Thailand and then we had to trek for hours through the hot leech infested jungle and we could only see them through a high powered telescope. This guy was happy to entertain us eating the fruit off a fig (ficus) tree. After seeing all the usual animals, except lions, we stayed at a bush lodge outside the park and not far from Hluhluwe town. The facility was terrible. The evening was cold and there was no where to sit in our dimly lit cabin except on the bed. The room was constructed out of poor quality materials and very similar to a building in an informal settlement but more waterproof. The kitchen was open to the elements on one side and poorly stocked with a couple of bent and buckled cheap aluminium pots. We had to eat at a table in the wind and dark as there was no lighting. Even the bar area was dark and open. The only redeeming features were the camp fire and the feeding of the bushbabies in the evening. It was a lot more expensive than any place we have stayed so far and definitely not worth the money. There was a family of 4 from France and us in the whole lodge so it was pretty quiet and the family didn't speak English.
Bushbabies are primates and related to the tarsiers that we saw in the Philippines. Their eyes in their sockets don't move and they have to move their heads to see anything but they are real cute.
