We woke up to a warm morning. I got the fire going and soon had the kettle boiling. After breakfast we explored a bit down at the scenic river. The river was quite remarkable having a solid rock bed in which pools were formed and connected by trickling streams, sometimes with noisy little waterfalls. The view was visually dominated by rocks, aloes, euphorbias, yellow grass across the river and big trees on the camp site side. Quite a dramatic difference. We had a good look around the camp site facilities (open air gas showers, flush toilets and a scullery) and then set off towards the Ngubhu loop (continuation of yesterday's route) after turning into the picnic site to see if the giraffes were still there. They weren't! There was a warning at the start of the loop to say that the road was in poor condition and recommended for 4x4 s only. The first excitement along the way was a black rhino. It was interesting to see that it had been dehorned. Then a few kilometers further on, on what was probably the worst bit of road, we came across a small group of elephants. They looked a bit aggressive, but thankfully moved off the road after about five minutes. We couldn't take many pictures as they were always just around the corner and we would have had to go to about 20m from them to get a decent view. Much too close for these elephants. The road was generally quite good, at least for a Cruiser, and very beautiful offering dramatic and ever changing views as it skirted the mountains at approximately the altitude of Ntshondwe Camp. We stopped at a lovely lookout point for morning coffee. There were views back over the way we had come, and also over our route from yesterday. From here it was a short drive to the tar road where we turned left. We decided to go and look at the Onverwacht picnic site, where we saw giraffe, zebras and kudus right at the picnic site which was also very attractive on the banks of a stream. From here we decided to take the last loop and then the short cut to the gate. There were lots of wildebeest on the grasslands in this area. Once out of the gate it was a long climb up the hill back to Louwsburg, where we stopped at the Spar to top up our supplies. It was a funny little Spar, but they had the basics and we bought supplies as we expected to be braaing again. Then we headed along the R69 for Jozini along a good, but once again a very steeply undulating road. As usual it was quite difficult to find a place to stop for lunch, but we eventually found a gravel road to turn off onto and pulled off under a tree for a bit of shade. It was certainly hot so far north.
The drop off from the verge was a bit steep and in turning I caught the silly low tow hook. We would discover this a bit later. Getting around the vast Jozini Dam and through the Phongolo Mountains meant driving up a quite dramatic pass that skirted the dam and the road finally crossed the river over the top of the dam wall. All quite dramatic. And we also had to drive through the crazy congested town of Jozini. There was a hive of activity - a typical African town scene! We crawled along at a walking pace for about 3 km. It was quite a feat to get to the diesel pump, but we were uncertain of fuel supplies further into Maputoland and decided to play it safe and fill up. Once through Jozini, the traffic disappeared and we continued north along a tarred road to the town of Ndumo. This was a pleasant surprise, because we expected a gravel road. At Ndumo town we got a bit lost and asked some children who were participating in a fun run which way to go to the reserve. Their answer was "follow us". Their route went to the entrance gate of the reserve. Amazingly we drove on tar right to the gate. There was some doubt as to whether we would be able to camp as the friendly gate guard told us there were a lot of people at the campsite. We had been phoning along the way, but had not been able to get an answer. The guard gave us different numbers to phone and we eventually got an answer which was good. We could go to the campsite and camp and pay tomorrow. It was 6.5 km to the camp site and when got there it was indeed quite busy. We stopped next to a big campervan and discovered that almost all the vehicles were part of one big group from Brits on their way to Mocambique. We found a spot far away from them, but near the ablutions. The camper people gave us their braai and the map they had got from the office. We discovered why we hadn't got an answer to our calls. The office closed at 4pm. We got our camp sorted - the Cruiser up on rocks to level out, the fire going and table and chairs set up. But our electrical connection didn't work, hardly an issue except that we had to walk some way to use our kettle. We had a lovely braai and then went for a walk about the camp site surprised some nyala. The moon was virtually full and we enjoyed our moonshadows. We could also hear bushbabies. After this we enjoyed good hot showers, getting to bed at about 22h30. We had finally made it to Ndumo!

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