Mkhaya Game Reserve, Swaziland

I woke up around 5am as it was already bright outside. It wasn't too noisy sleeping *outdoors*, about the same as camping.

At 5:30am the camp staff came by with a tray of coffee, tea and freshly-baked muffins. It was especially tasty. We ate outside our cottage so we didn't leave crumbs for ants.

The morning safari started at 6am. We saw about 15-20 rhinos, all white. Then just before the end of the drive, we spotted a black rhino! Now that we know the difference, it's easy to spot the different nose, back and neck arch.

We returned to camp at 8am for breakfast. It was a full breakfast, fruit and yoghurt, and eggs and bacon made to order. The staff made toast over the coals from yesterday's campfire.

There wasn't much time to rest before our waking safari at 10:30am. The day was starting to get hot (I think it went up to 35C). It was a small group - me, Heather, Marissa, and a couple who also happened to be from Ontario.

We drove out with our guide, Africa, to a grasslands area which was our starting point. As usual the walking safari started off slowly, with explanations about various plants and insects. I'm pretty sure the guides also use this as a chance to evaluate the group. Outside of the safari vehicle, we're no longer the top of the food chain.

Anyways we gained enough trust of the guide to get into denser bush. We walked from wallow to wallow in search of rhinos, but weren't having much luck.

Towards the two hour mark, we headed to one last wallow. Suddenly Africa put up his hand, the signal to stop. In the distance I heard a low rumble. Then about 20 metres away I saw dust and shadows of Cape buffalo as a group of over twenty stampeded by us. Our guide said they had picked up our scent and got afraid, and so stampeded. Lucky for us they couldn't tell our direction.

We took a more circuitous route to get to the last wallow. Sure enough, there was a white rhino and her son! The white rhinos are calmer compared to the black rhino; and this particular rhino had been hand-raised and familiar with humans. If anything the danger was from the rhino getting curious and following us.

We observed the rhinos from about 20m away, until the mother noticed us and started wandering over to say hello. Our guide backed us up into the bush to get away; and then we hiked back to the safari vehicle.

Walking through waist-high grasses and through thick underbrush with animals all about was really cool, one of the highlights of the trip so far.

We arrived back at Stone Camp around 1pm. It didn't seem like we had been walking in the heat for 2.5 hours!

Had lunch and then showered. I also washed my shirt, it dried in about an hour.

At 4pm we went out for the evening game drive. Africa was our ranger again (we had a different ranger for the morning drive, who was tracking the black rhino but sped around a lot. We preferred Africa's driving). We saw another black rhino, this time a mother and baby.

After dinner there was another song and dance show by the staff. (I forgot to mention we did this last night too). It's traditional Zulu songs, a little bit touristy for me, although authentic.

We were exhausted after three safaris in the day and fell asleep quickly.