Swaziland - White Water Rafting, Tubing and lots of animals!

Thursday/Friday 19 and 20 August

Swaziland is great. It's fantastic. The people are so friendly. Every shop we go into we are asked how we are, where are we from, who we are etc etc. Every person we drive by waves and smiles. The scenery is stunning too.

Not even an hour after a very stress free border crossing we were taking breakfast under an acacia tree in a small valley surrounded by mountains. (reminder to self. Wear shoes when in close proximity of acacia trees).

Having crossed over the border, I was surprised to look back on all the travelling I have done to realize that this is only the 3rd time I have crossed a border by land. France-Spain, Uganda-Kenya and now SA to Swaziland.

We drove straight to our campsite which is in the Mwhaline Nature Reserve, a conservation park set up by the king in the 60's. Animals are plentiful here, we haven't seen any of the big 5 yet, but we are visited frequently by a whole host of antelope, wart hogs, guinea fowl to name but a few. Kieran hasn't befriended any dogs here, but, we have all become quite close to an Eland who is so tame that it actually pinches food from out table as we eat.

The boys built a lovely camp fire on the first night, I say camp fire, more like a bonfire with flames shooting up in excess of 8ft high, and I had a minor panic attack at the thought of burning the park down! Eventually it settled to a much more sensible size where we could sit near it and toast marshmellows.

On the 2nd night we ate inside the campervan, the first time this entire trip that we have done that and if I may say so myself, I rustled up a wicked chicken and bean curry which we complimented with apple and cream slices. I didn't make the apple slices, my bush tucker cooking skills don't stretch that far, we purchased those from a local bakers earlier in the day.

There is a small pool here with a very pronounced 'swim at own risk' sign which Kieran enticed me into. The swim was shortlived as I was convinced something snakelike was slithering around my feet and my exit from the ice cold water was as graceful as my entrance. (NOT!)

We white water rafted on the mighty Usutu. Wrong time of year for the fast water unfortunately and at times the river was so low that the rafts were wedged on the bottom, but when we did hit deeper water it was lovely to cruise down the river and take in all the surroundings. We rafted in a small group, Me and K in one raft, Dan paired up with John, an Irish guy, and Laura and Garry from Belgium was in the 3rd raft. There were several guides too in individual rafts. These were the smallest rafts I had used as all my previous rafting were in the big rafts.

Although the water was slow, the rapids were still quite high and it was great fun being bounced down them. As the most experenced rafter within the group, it gives me no pleasure to report that I was the only person to be thrown from their raft and as Kieran was sent shooting down the river with a look of slight concern on his face at the prospect of suddenly being solo, I was smashed against what felt like every rock in the Usutu. That's what we wear helmets for. I can handle bumps and bruises to all the other parts of my body, but I was sure grateful for my helmet! Of course, the helmet offers no protection against the crocs that lurk in the Usutu. Thankfully, they are all vegetarian here. Or so we were told!

Tubing was a similar experience but instead of rafts we are in individual donuts and being swept down the rapids in those things were great fun. And, whereas everyone came out of theirs at some point, I proudly stayed firmly wedged in my donut throughout. Both K and Dan came out of theirs and thankfully injuries were confined to just bumps and scrapes. The rocks here are soft and rounded. If they were like the ones at Coffee Bay, razor sharp and jagged, we would be mailed home in pieces.

We got told off at the end. K, Dan and I started to mess about when we hit calmer water and we started to tip each other out. Then Dan let my donut down to which I promptly sank and then we really started to get silly before we were reprimanded by the guide who looked confused as he tried to work out which one of the 3 of us was the adult!

So, as I write this it is about 7:30am on Friday morning. I am sat outside the campervan looking out over a small waterhole lined with tall trees dwarfed by the surrounding hills. Our friendly eland is sniffing around about 10feet from me, and guinea fowl are pecking around my feet. it's like a scene from snow white! And as i am enjoying a delicious cup of coffee and thinking 'it doesn't get much better than this' Kieran appears with breakfast that he has cooked for his old dad. God I love Swaziland!