Another early start to drive to Kumasinga Hide. The bird life was active but not much game. We spent a bit of time seeing Neergaard's Sunbird and Green Bulbul. Some of the birds we saw, a Pygmy Kingfisher on the pond with Southern Masked Weaver, Common Bulbul, Fork-tailed Drongo, a pair of White-crestred Helmet Shrikes, Dusky Indigobird, Burchell's Coucal, Cardinal Woodpecker, Emerald Wood Dove, African Green Pigeon and limited views of Orange-breasted Bushshrike. Three-banded Plover pottered around the edge of the pond.
We went back to the chalet, packed up, loaded the car, checked out, had a burger breakfast and left at at 11.00 heading to Hlehluwe.
All went well to start with but when I turned on the Sat Nav it took us off the highway onto dirt tracks and we spent the next 6 hours or so wandering around on ever decreasing dirt roads. One turn had us heading down a rutted track where we stopped on the brink of a series of crevases. We did eventually make it back out to the main road again, but did a couple of U-turns as we didn't know if we were above or below the entrance gate. We then tried putting in the co-ordinates of the gate from the website which did get us to a signpost for the Nyalaza Gate, but even that wasn't where it said. We arrival at Nyalaza gate at 7.10! for what should have been an hour and half drive. Luckily they were expecting us as we had been in contact with the booking agent, so they booked us in and told us to drive straight to Hilltop. We settled in, went to dinner, which was nice before driving back to our cottage in the beginning of an amazing thunder storm. It crashed and clattered about in a crescendo of noise for ages.
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