 |
travel@pangolin.liSouth Africa - 2002
|
 |
 |
www.pangolin.li Travel South Africa 2002 1 Rocktail Bay KZN 2 Londolozi Safari 3 Cape Town 4 Winelands/Karoo 5 Garden Route Gallery |
|
contact last updated: 13-Feb-2006 Text/pictures subject to copyright by pangolin.li |
 |
 |
||||||||||||
Our trip to South Africa in December 2002
|
 |
Rocktail
Bay Lodge is only really seen when you drive into their
parking lot - everything but their radio antenna and a few
well-camouflaged green roofs is hidden in the trees behind the dunes.
The dunes are very special in that they are forested - not just the
normal succulent plants, but real trees and flowers - one of the
reasons why this was declared Maputaland Coastal reserve. The sandy
road is bumpy - but this really loosens tense muscles... And it's also
a game drive - baboons, duikers and guineafowls are quite abundant. |
The
rooms or chalets are built into the trees and mostly made of wood
and reed - but with the usual amenities. They all consist of a bedroom,
a bathroom/wc and an outdoor shower hidden in the trees, which you
reach through the indoor shower. All openings are closed with mosquito
nets. The large verandah is comfortably shaded by trees. Usually two
chalets are grouped together - somewhat disturbing privacy. You feel
that the place is not brandnew but well maintained - and the interiors
fit the surroundings. |
 |
Activites
Our three main activities were turtling, diving and lazying. The latter can best be done in a hammock on the hammock trail, or else at the endless and deserted beach. If you need activity, you can go for a stroll on the forest trail - if you're not afraid of snakes and stuff (they are afraid of you, or at least of me...). Then there are the excursions to the local community (we didn't do this) or to Black Rock - a black rock of probably volcanic material protruding into the sea, including a spithole. The latter trip was beautiful, and very well guided. We stopped even for a plant (lucky me!): The endemic Tongaland Cycad, growing to man's height, but very slowly - our specimen was estimated to be some 200 years old! |
 |
| Black Rock | Tongaland Cycad |
Turtle drives
The fine sandy beaches around Rocktail Bay are at night deserted and pitch-dark - something Leatherback and Loggerhead Turtles love. Rocktail Bay is part of one of the oldest turtle monitoring projects - and they're allowed to take guests on their nightly turtle drives. The special-permit drive along the beach is done at low tide (not to disturb the eggs), for abouth 15 km southwards. As soon as the guide sees tracks, headlights are switched off and the car is stopped. If you're lucky, she is just starting to dig.Seeing such a beast is a truly exciting experience - even though we missed the leatherbacks (my advice: never go to bed early...). Between December and February, the females make their way up above the waterline, dig a hole with their hind flippers, and lay some 100 eggs, which hatch ca. 60 days later, all together. Research data are collected when she is actually laying, as she goes into kind of a trance then. All turtles are marked with a chip in their flipper, to recognize them when they come back later this season (they come ashore several times within a few nights) or in later years. A few were also radio-tracked - read more about the Maputaland Turtle Research Programme here.
There is only one problem when coming in December: you have to come back in February to see the hatchlings. We did.
 |
 |
| Loggerhead Turtle female back to the see | Loggerhead female being measured |
Diving
Diving in Rocktail Bay, with Clive, Debbie and Darryl, was superb. They are very relaxed, and the underwater life is just stunning. JJ was not always relaxedly enjoing the underwater life: Especially not after Clive pulled him back on his flipper, because he was swimming into a fusilier shoal, while a 3 meter Ragged-tooth Shark (the first of the season) did the same from the other side of the swarm. A close encounter, and terrifying even though we were told that the shark ladies don't eat while there - they just wait in the warm water for their pregnacy to come to an end. On our way back from this trip we stopped at a reef where you could jump in with your snorkeling gear and find 8 or 10 of the ladies hanging around in a cave. Coming back from another dive, we snorkeled with dolphins. A pair - one a baby - circled around me, so close that I just couldn't touch them. Something I will never forget... Other highlights on our six dives to Brewer's Garden, Elusive, Regal and Gogo's included: patting Clive's pet potato bass, stroking his pet murray eel (yes, she seemed to like it, and her skin is soooo smooth), and then my first turtle ever. All this in an endless aquarium.Unfortunately I do not have pictures from this diving trip - see here for our 2005 trip.
Go to Part 2
