Wednesday 24th August 2016: A beautiful morning - a couple of our group have been out running on the boardwalk early this morning - sad to leave this beautiful hotel with its British/colonial feel, Prince Albert and his wife have stayed here. We have 220km to travel to get to the Rhino Conservation Park, passing miles and miles of sugar cane fields, then some macadamia trees then huge plantations of very tall skinny eucalyptus trees and finally pineapple fields growing in chocolate brown soil. Now I need to correct a couple of things here: I did say the eucalypt was a pest and they were trying to get rid of it - well that is only when it is competing with the natural vegetation, like in National Parks and along waterways. In these plantations it is important to their economy, being used for construction, paper pulp, and wood chips. The second thing I had wrong was saying there was only 3 toll roads in SA, well that was just that province. We are now in KwaZulu-Natal.  
 
The sugar cane when ripe is burnt to get rid of snakes and the razor sharp leaves before being manually cut with machetes. Indian people came to work for the British in the cane fields and many of them stayed, making up a section of the population today. We are in Zulu land now and their culture has remained strong with their singing, dancing and bead work. 

We turn off the main highway towards the Game Reserve and go through a poor rural area with lots of Zulu huts in the shape of beehives. In the park we see Warthog, Impala, Buffalo in a waterhole, elephants, zebra, Rhinos and Giraffe. No lions and leopards as it really is the wrong time of day for them. Giraffe have 7 vertebra in their necks, the same as we do and give birth standing up, which can prove hazardous for the baby if it lands on its head - fairly high mortality rate due to this. The Park is in 96,000 hectares of rolling hills and is green where we see it due to a recent thunderstorm, but the area is in drought with a severe shortage of water. 

 
The coach climbs up to the Hilltop Camp which has accommodation huts, restaurant etc. We purchase late lunch here and eat on the deck overlooking the park and are entertained by the monkeys which end up amongst us - one snatches a chip off my plate, fortunately these aren't interested in glasses, food is much tastier and there is a striped Impala which keeps everyone snapping.
Some time later we arrive at Ghost Mountain Inn - some Zulu ladies come to the dining room and sing some rousing traditional songs - really feel like we are in Africa now.