Win a weekend for two at Umkhumbi Lodge! Your prize includes dinner, bed and breakfast, a half day game drive in the Hluhluwe-iMfolozi Game Reserve and a 2.5 hour guided kayak on the St Lucia Estuary.
See below for more information!
Win a weekend for two at Umkhumbi Lodge! Your prize includes dinner, bed and breakfast, a half day game drive in the Hluhluwe-iMfolozi Game Reserve and a 2.5 hour guided kayak on the St Lucia Estuary.
See below for more information!
Our Environmental Awareness Course with Mid Kent College is now featured in an educational catalogue!
A round up of all the fantastic pictures that have made it onto the facebook page of our lodge in South Africa.
Every day we put a new photo on our Facebook page, we’ve put a selection of them here!
Our NEW family holidays are available with 2by2holidays.
Dad wants action, mum wants beach, the kids want something new and there is always one who doesn’t think they want to go on Safari…
Problem?
Not at all!
There is something for everyone on our family Environmental Awareness holiday.
Relax at the soft, clean sandy beach of Kosi Bay – with *amazing* snorkelling and the nice calm, warm waters of the estuary to paddle in (so, whether your children are 4 or 14 there are no tides to worry about!)
Spend an afternoon cruising with the Hippos and Crocs in St Lucia and then visit the croc centre to learn more about the ‘dinosaurs’ of the St Lucia Estuary. For more adventure, family members over 12 years can Kayak on the St Lucia Estuary and see the hippos and crocs at eye-level!
We even cater for the hands-on animal lovers! Stroke a cheetah, cuddle it, or, feed an elephant and even touch its tongue!! Learn about these fascinating creatures, see how they jump and run and learn how they think!
Meet our scaley snake friends and get to hold fluffy the Red-tailed Boa! She is over 2.5m in length now and loves cuddles – don’t worry she is non-venomous, in fact, boas don’t even have fangs!
But there is much much more to do in KZN and Umkhumbi Lodge is perfectly based to see and do as many different things as possible!
For example, I haven’t even mentioned one of the oldest game reserves in South Africa, which is just a 40 minutes drive from us, the Hluhluwe-Imfolozi Game Reserve.
Big 5 safari at Hluhlwe-Imfolozi and a little safari with us as we take you on a night walk through our bush in search of scorpions, spiders, chameleons and bush babies. There are usually lots of glow worms too, to get small imaginations running… so keep your eyes peeled for the ‘fairies’!

Expedition Day 4 – The Last Day
The last day of the expedition started with the usual groans of apprehension. What followed was to be a great day of walking down to the border between Mozambique and South Africa.
The morning started with everyone getting up and preparing their kit bags for the day ahead. Tents were to be cleared out of all kit although some people forgot their clothes which they had left to dry on the washing line (trees around their tent) What followed was a quick final breakfast down at the dive center then bags on and off walking for 8am.
Walking the road past the market followed by some very quick haggling with the locals for the last items from them, then off again down the road and on to the school we were at all those day’s before. Followed from the local village by the usual entourage of kids all of which were coping with the heat better than the rest of us.
As time went past a giant game of leap frog started to occur between the 3 different groups all trying to reach the border first helped to while away the hours as did loads of energy sweets and the constant chatter of random topics of conversation ranging from what we had done, what was left in store for use to some very random topics which are too strange for words. This would only occur when we were not observing the sky’s for the odd bird of prey (kites and a Fish Eagles mainly but there was a snake eagle)
It was as the final kilometers drew into view the final realization that we were leaving Mozambique began to kick in memories came flooding back of what we had done in Mozambique. At the border we were greater with the wide embrace of Tony and Anton (Ha it was more of being thrown through the border bags into the van and the shout of scavengers over here). As well as congratulations from Lacey (who was, I think, taking 100 pictures a second) and Charlotte. On the other side of the border we where greeted by Meva and then driven back to Anton’s where we were treated to Meva’s famous Lasagne.
From the whale watching to climbing signal hill and the tremendous fun we had with the locals in the schools and orphanage none of us would forget what we have achieved.
Stuart
Kosi Bay – Historic Fish Traps and Beach
After breakfast at our Kosi Bay accommodation we all walked down to the historic fish traps where we were introduced to Elmon a local fisherman. Elmon took us into the water and gave us a tour of the traps and showed us how they worked. Unfortunately the tide was too high in the morning to catch fish so we went to the beach for an hour or so.
At the beach we split into three groups – sunbathers, paddlers and ball gamers.
When we returned to the fish traps in the afternoon, Elmon took a few of us back out to the fish traps and Beth, Glyn, Alicia, Lottie, Becky and Adam went into the fish traps to try and spear fish. Three fish were caught, one each by Glyn, Lottie (stabbing it multiple times and getting covered in fish guts/blood) and Adam. The fish were carried to shore and given to Elmon to take home to his family.
Glyn
…..
Glyn told to spear fish.
Glyn spear fish.
Glyn happy.
…..
Today started with one of tommy’s infamous wake up calls, violently shaking the tent yelling “Good morning my sleeping beauties” giving us all the shock of our lives before we fell into fits of giggles, even first thing in the morning this trip is exciting.
We expected today to be one of the quieter ones, due to a long boring drive to Swaziland, but as we’re quickly learning Africa is never what you expect. After only half an hours drive we came across something even more shocking than tommy’s wake up calls, a lone female lion crossing the road only meters ahead of us. It was an amazing sight, she was so calm and graceful, meanwhile we were bouncing around the minibus in excitement, we didn’t even have chance to calm down again before we drove past four giraffes grazing at the side of the road. I think what made all these encounters so amazing was their unpredictability, to think we were expecting a boring drive!
However i don’t think any encounter no matter how unpredictable or amazing will compare to the elephant interaction we experienced today. Just seeing these majestic animals walking towards us out of the bush made us gasp, they were incredible, I’ve seen elephants before but never noticed how calm and gentle these giants are.
The presentation was genuinely interesting, did you know after 50 years an elephant must sleep standing up or the pressure of their weight will give them a heart attack? Nope neither did i. Feeding the elephants was indescribable. While it was awe inspiring and enlightening, it was also funny and felt like being licked by a giant jack russell.
The drive again was another mini safari, seeing baboons, cheetah, impala, zebra and even more giraffes.
Lottie
It seems that these little primates are becoming big fans of the night vision camera!
I was standing right in the window with a normal video camera for this one! They’re getting brave!