It was once again a beautiful morning. By chance the low morning sun reached us directly through the dense vegetation. We got a breakfast fire going again. This would probably be one of the last fires of the trip. After getting packed, we walked down the many steps to the beach and were surprised to find that there was a road down to the beach and a tractor was busy launching an inflatable. We watched as the coxswain carefully took it out through the waves that were fortunately quite small. A fellow we spoke to on the steps said the snorkeling here was some of the best in the area. Then it was up the steps and we headed for the track past Lake Siibaya. Once again there were many tracks to chose from! Although the track is close to the lake, it was seldom visible because of the denseness of the forest. The track was also very "uppity and downity" which provided a most unusual sensation, almost like sailing over waves. Just as we were wondering where and how to stop there was a turn off towards the lake. We turned in and found a spot amongst from old walls and sewer pipes. Possibly an old picnic site? There was a bit of rubbish lying about, but it did give access to the lake. We had morning coffee and pumped the tyre and then found another turnoff about 500 m further on. This proved to be a much bigger track that lead off across the dunes and beaches to the now distant lake. Lake Sibaya was obviously very low. What was remarkable were trees being used as nesting sites for white breasted cormorants. There must have been at least 100 birds present. Slightly further on we left the lake behind and were able to see how low the water level was compared to what must have been floating platforms now at least 10m above the almost out of site water.
A turnoff to 9 Mile Reef looked really inviting. The track into and across the dunes started off looking straightforward, but then the bush closed in and there were some serious cross angles and sandy uphills. Troopy handled it easily, but about a kilometer from the beach there was a very narrow steeply downhill stretch with a 30 degree side slope. We were sure it was quite doable, but Troopy was going to get seriously scratched. So we chickened out and made a multi multi point u-turn, Marianne doing a wonderful job of clearing fierce looking thorns from the turning space. So we continued and soon came to the exit gate of the park. Now we followed a maze of tracks towards the tarred Sodwana Bay road. We missed the way a number of times, but eventually got to the Sodwana River. It didn't look too deep, but 2/3 of the way across Marianne's "oops, it's over the bonnet" said it all. But it was only for a few meters and then we were out on the other side of the river.
We drove into Sodwana Bay reserve, paying an excessive entrance fee, and made our way to the Mseni Beach Lodge restaurant where we had our first civilised lunch for a long time, sharing a pizza and enjoying cappuccinos. Sodwana Bay was generally disappointing. We found it quite run down looking and were shocked by the size of the campsite, which has over 400 sites and is reputedly the largest in the Southern Hemisphere! We had a quick look at the beach, which also looked unremarkable, but Sodwana Bay is rated as one of the top ten dive destinations in the world. We decided that it must be particularly terrible in high season when the campsite is full.
We were quite keen to take the backroads to St Lucia, but the locals advised against it saying it went through quite populated areas and was difficult to find.
So we took the main roads, turning onto the R22 and following it almost to Hluhluwe before turning off to False Bay. We had intended to go to Fanie's Island, but when we phoned to find out if there was place were told that it was closed. About a kilometer down the turnoff we turned off the road to collect firewood, again from an old plantation. Then we went into the False Bay section of the iSimangaliso Wetland Park. There were 2 camping areas, both of them unoccupied. What was strange was that there were almost no flat sites, but we managed to find one with a fireplace under an enormous euphorbia tree. Except for a long walk to the ablutions, which was hardly a problem, it was a lovely site and we enjoyed the moon rising over water once again. The wood we collected provided an excellent fire and we enjoyed our last braai of the trip with the huge moon providing us with light. It was also exciting to hear hyenas quite close to the campsite. We had a bit of excitement before going to bed as the tyre was flat and the car was at too much of an angle to sleep. So the tyre had to be pumped. I was not impressed! Then we tucked in and slept well.

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