Nine Days in South Africa: Wine, Penguins & Safari VI

9 Days in South Africa: Wine, Penguins & Safari (20 to 28 Feb 2020) Trip Report Menu

Day 1: Singapore – Stellenbosch
Day 2: Stellenbosch – Stony Point – Cape Town
Day 3: Cape Town – Old Biscuit Mill & Super Rugby
Day 4: Cape Town – Lion’s Head
Day 5: Cape Town – Bo Kaap, Chapman’s Drive, Cape Peninsula, Muizenberg, La Colombe
Day 6: Cape Town – Phinda
Day 7: Phinda
Day 8: Phinda
Day 9: Phinda – Singapore

Day 6: Cape Town – Phinda

After five days in Western Cape, we were ready to move on. As it was our first time in South Africa, staying at a safari camp is high on our list. I did a fair bit of research before deciding on Phinda in eastern KwaZulu- Natal. Being in the travel industry, I also got a very good rate from andBeyond.

From Cape Town, one can either fly directly into Phinda (via Johannesburg and Nelspruit) with Airlink or fly into Durban and drive three hours. Compared to Airlink who was asking for over 12,000 ZAR per person, we paid around 2,700 ZAR for the two of us to travel from Cape Town to Durban on 24 Feb and then from Durban to Johannesburg 4 days later.

Our flight to Durban departed mid-morning and we made sure that we had plenty of time to top up petrol, return the car and check-in before flying.

CPT airside

Comair’s Boeing 737-800 (ZS-ZWX) would ferry us to Durban. It operates domestic South African flights as a British Airways franchisee; hence tickets are bought through BA website and its planes all spot BA livery.

With no IFE, I kept myself occupied with the inflight magazine during the flight.

The hour-long flight was uneventful and after getting some supplies from the airport supermarket, we picked up our car from Thrifty. We paid around 1900 ZAR for the 4 days’ rental of a Toyota Avanza.

Funnily, we got back onto N2, the same highway which brought us to Cape Town airport this morning. It is the longest numbered route in South Africa and stretches over 2,000km along the coast from Cape Town to KwaZulu-Natal in the east.

The first half of our 260km journey were on 4-lane limited access expressways with three toll booths (71.50 ZAR in total) along the way. Then it narrowed to two-lane road until the turn off for Phinda.

The tarmac gave way to dirt for the final 20+km.

Since Phinda is a private game reserve, the security guard at the gate verified our details and radioed our lodge for our impending arrival at andbeyond Mountain Lodge.

With over 20 suites, Mountain Lodge was the largest of the six lodges within Phinda. We were warmly welcomed by the staff on arrival and soon shown to our beautiful room for the next two nights.

Bathtub with a view

Beside room and board, the rate also included two game drives per day. For the afternoon game drive, we were asked to gather at the lounge at 4pm.

Deck which looks out on the African bush

Zandri, our guide for the next two days, introduced herself to us and pointed to where we could get some tea and cake. She also asked if it was our first safari (yes) and there were any animals that we were interested to see (giraffes for Mrs).

Beside Zandri and spotter Sipho, four elderly Spanish men were the companions for our game drives. Despite our language barrier, we found ourselves entertained by them over the next few days.

Our first game drive was off to a good start. Soon after leaving the lodge, another ranger reported a sighting of a lioness. When we arrived, it was just lazing around in the shade and not at all fussed by the vehicles.

Zandri was excellent in the sharing with her knowledge; we got to know that hippopotamus can’t swim and they are just resting on the lake bed.

Wildebeests feeding

I always wondered if it’s white on black or black on white.

Playful young zebras play-fighting

We drove past the airstrip with a herd of impalas.

Airlink’s Cessna 208 Grand Caravan parked near the airstrip

We finally spotted some giraffes and Mrs was delighted.

Kudu, characterised by the white stripes on its back

Somehow we managed to get front row seats to see an aggressive adult elephant riled up by other jeeps.

It didn’t seem so aggressive though with the perpetual grin.

It turned out that there was newborn within the herd and the adult was trying to be protective of it. Can you spot the little one?

It was almost sunset then and our guides were looking for a place to set up the sundowner.

We really appreciated the effort being put into setting all these up; there was even a hot food option.

Impalas prancing at Sundowner location

First sunset in the bush

It was just past 8pm when we got back to the lodge. It was a great first game drive and got us really looking forward to the remaining ones.

Dinner was served ala carte under the candle light. It was quite a fancy set up.

I had steak for main while Mrs had the vegetarian couscous. The portion was so big that I could hardly finish it.

As the lodge wasn’t fenced, it was required to have a staff to accompany us back to our lodge after sunset. We rested early, in anticipation of a 5am wake-up call the following morning.