Mkhaya Game Reserve, Swaziland

Next on our itinerary was Stone Camp in Mkhaya Game Reserve. It's the best place to see rhinos in all of Africa.

Rangers pick you up from the park gates at either 10am or 4pm. We had booked 48 hours starting at 10am, so left Ezulwini Valley at 8am just to be safe (our hotel said it was a 90 minute drive).

We followed the GPS most of the way and then the directions from Stone Camp to get to entrance gate by 9:40am. Another car with tourists pulled up shortly after, so we figured we were in the right spot. It was slightly drizzling as we waited.

At 10:04am the ranger arrived in an open safari vehicle. We followed him to a secure parking place, and transferred our packs. We had been warned that we could only bring a small overnight bag, as there wasn't much room for luggage in the safari vehicle. Heather and I travel fairly light (about 15kg each) so we were okay with our regular packs.

The drive in is also a game drive, and we saw lots of giraffes, and some rhinos! The park is fenced off for breeding purposes, where the ranger would stop, open the gate, drive through, close the gate. It was like being on a TTC streetcar when the driver has to change the switching to turn.

It had stopped raining halfway through the two hour game drive, and was getting hot in the sun when we arrived in camp.

I wasn't sure what to expect. I knew there was no electricity (Heather and I arrived with our devices and cameras fully charged), but wasn't sure about plumbing.

The cottages turned out to be much better than I hoped! They are open-concept, with a only a two-foot stone wall between us and the wilderness. They had running potable water (hot and cold), showers, and comfortable beds with mosquito nets. Due to the drought there were hardly any bugs. It was almost better than Inyati!

We had another evening game drive at 4pm, so didn't have much time after lunch to relax and enjoy the place.

As advertised, we saw plenty of rhinos on the game drive, about 20-30 in different groupings. Today we saw only the more common white rhino. The name had nothing to do with the color of the rhino, but was a lost-in-translation thing from way back when.

Dinner was excellent around a fire. They even had cold beer! I had a Sibebe, the local Swazi beer. Heather had a chilled Sauv Blanc from South Africa. As Marissa said, this is our kind of camping.

Walked back to our cottages along paths lit with paraffin lights. Our cottage was similarly lit, looking very pretty. There were hardly any bugs which made getting into bed easier.