I visited the Zimanga Private Game Reserve just over a
week ago. I have been to Zimanga on a few occasions, and never have I had a bad
experience there. As you may know (or maybe do not know), Zimanga is a private
game reserve situated in the northern KwaZulu Natal Province of South Africa that
has not only the ‘big 5’ but also cheetah, wild dog and many other mammal
species - with birds in relative abundance. This game reserve is ideal for the
photographic enthusiast and I can’t think of a better place for photographers to
visit to give their cameras some work to do. I am not going to delve too deeply
into the merits of the photographic opportunities at Zimanga – I have covered
these in my previous pieces – see http://farandwild.blogspot.co.za/2014/09/zimanga-gem-for-wildlife-keith-marallich.html
and http://farandwild.blogspot.co.za/2016/10/a-tour-report-with-amateur_20.html
which were submitted by me in September 2014 and October 2016 respectfully. My
colleague, Jeremy, has also submitted two blogs on Zimanga, so this reserve is
well covered (please also see his blogs at http://farandwild.blogspot.co.za/2015/06/zimanga-private-game-reserve-by-jeremy.html
and http://farandwild.blogspot.co.za/2016/06/zimanga-private-game-reserve-mkuze.html).
In my two blogs, I deal with the Mkhombe and Bhejane Hides and some of the game
drives, so I will not cover these again (and will just touch on the Lagoon Hide
that I also covered in my last blog – I have yet to visit the Umgodi Overnight
Hide and the Bee-eater Hide, so will not comment on these).
Now, once my reservation with Zimanga had been
confirmed, (which was at fairly short notice), I started looking at firstly the
long-range weather forecast for the Mkuze/Zimanga area and it didn’t look good,
and then, as the time drew closer, so the weather forecast changed and looked even
bleaker and bleaker for the duration of my visit here. A massive cold front was
sweeping in from the south of the country, bringing with it heavy rain over
much of southern and eastern South Africa and snowfalls in the high-lying
areas, with warnings of localised flooding – a weather phenomenon which is
quite unusual in this part of the world during May. A few days before my visit,
the forecast was for heavy rainfall that was expected for both the days I was
to be at Zimanga - more of this later when I will give you a first-hand account
of the accuracy of weather forecasts!
My two-night stay at Zimanga was to be at their DOORNHOEK
HOMESTEAD, which had opened its doors to guests during September 2016 and this
was my first visit to this homestead. This homestead consists of three
air-conditioned, en-suite twin rooms, as well as an en-suite single room, also
air-conditioned. The accommodation is ideal for groups of up to seven
individuals and groups staying here have access to their own game viewing
vehicle and guide. Smaller groups also
have the option to book the entire house for themselves and rooms can also be
booked on an individual basis (which is what we did).
A big drawcard for guests staying at Doornhoek is that
they can, within reason, decide on their own itinerary in terms of time-slots
for activities, extending drives into the night to follow predators, or getting
up extra early for a session at a nearby hide. During the day guests can relax
in the beautiful rim-flow pool offering sweeping views over Zimanga and the
distant Lebombo Mountains, and at night the fireplace with its comfortable
seating makes it an ideal location to enjoy a glass of wine with the wide open
African skies and a small fire keeping one company.
All rooms have separate desks to set up a laptop for
image editing, with ample space and a variety of electricity couplings to make
sure the equipment stays charged. Free Wi-Fi is available at the homestead and
I found the download (is that the correct word?) speed to be pretty fast (much
faster than I have at home or at the office in the city).
Meals are provided and prepared by their in-house
staff and I must say that the meals here were good and because of the inclement
weather, only lunch on the first day was served on the veranda overlooking the
bush – all other meals were enjoyed inside the homestead in the dining area.
Upon arrival, I was driven to Doornhoek by our guide, Geordie, and at the
homestead it was a quick tour of the place, the do’s and don’ts and an
explanation of the meal times and just a general overview of the programme. Very briefly, what happens is this: a light
lunch is served upon arrival and all soft and alcoholic drinks are for your own
account (except for bottled water, tea, coffee, hot chocolate etc. which is
supplied free of charge) – and this works on an ‘honesty bar’ basis (you help
yourself to what you want and mark it down, to be settled upon departure).
After your afternoon activity, it is back to Doornhoek, where, if time permits
and you haven’t done so during your photography session, you “chimp” (for those
of you who don’t know, “chimping” is a colloquial term used in digital
photography to describe the habit of checking every photo on the camera display
immediately after capture), or better still, if you have a lap-top with you,
you can download your images onto your computer for a better idea of what images
you have, which ones you want to keep and which images must be ‘culled”!
Then it is on to dinner. Oh, I forgot – at lunch-time
one of the friendly staff will approach you with the menu options for that evening’s
dinner and there are choices for starters and mains and then dessert. This is
not a culinary blog, so you’ll have to take my word for it – the food was good,
very good. I don’t eat dessert (or that’s what I would like to think), but
without a shred of guilt, I broke my rule on the very first night by having not
one, but two slices of home-made lemon meringue and on the second night a delicious
peppermint crisp dessert. Just a word on the meals, here there are no airs and
graces, just wholesome (and plentiful) food that was excellent.
Hereunder some images, courtesy of Zimanga, of the
Doornhoek Homestead:-
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| Bathroom |
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| Bedroom |
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| Deck |
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| Dining Area |
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| Lounge |
So, what of the activities? On the first afternoon,
the wind had picked up quite a bit, but the sky was clear, so we decided to visit
the Lagoon Hide whilst the light was still good. Not to delve too deeply into
the merits of the Lagoon Hide (which has been covered in previous blogs), I did
finally get to photograph an African Fish Eagle. However, (and there is always
a ‘however”), he/she didn’t want to play ball, as it were, and decided to stay
on the ‘wrong’ side of the hide, quite far away and half hidden in some grass
(‘wrong’ because you have a ‘front’ and ‘back’ to this hide, depending on time
of day). There was also some activity from Pied Kingfishers and these little
chaps kept me quite busy for a lot of the time. A juvenile Striated Heron
(formerly a Green-Backed heron) also paid us a brief visit, but this too, was on
the ‘wrong’ side of the hide. During our entire session here, the wind seemed
to be blowing quite strong, but this did not detract from our experience (and
in fact maybe added a little comic relief, with the Pied Kingfishers being a
bit wind-blown). Luckily the light stayed good for the entire afternoon and
there was no rain, so it was a fairly successful session here.
Hereunder just a small cross-section of some of the
images from the afternoon session at the Lagoon Hide:-
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| African Fish Eagle |
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| Pied Kingfishers |
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| Striated Heron |
The following morning we had decided to visit the
Scavengers Hill Hide (my first time) and the thing about this hide is that one
has to be in place whilst it was still dark, (so that the birds would not see
human activity and stay away because of this). We promptly departed Doornhoek
at 05:30 (remember, it is May and 05:30 is still pitch dark) and shortly
thereafter were in position at the hide, just Janice and myself, no-one else. The
hide is elevated above the Doornhoek Valley, and the sweeping view from the top
serves as a backdrop to this vulture restaurant. To date, five species of
vultures and numerous other scavengers, both avian and mammalian, have used the
site. The hide seats four guests, and like
all the other hides at Zimanga, each station is supplied with a Manfrotto Tripod
and Benro head.
So, we settled in to wait – in the darkness, with a
slowly lightening sky in the east trying to break through the clouds! The wind
by this time was howling, and as it grew lighter with the advent of the coming
day, so I saw that it was quite heavily overcast and I didn’t expect much from
this morning’s activity. How wrong I was. The first birds started arriving
before it was properly light – and continued coming and going for the entire
period that we were there. Unfortunately, for the four and a half hours that we
were there, not a single mammal made an appearance, but what did arrive were Marabou
Storks, Tawny Eagles, Woolly-necked Storks and White-backed Vultures. It seems
that I am forgetting something…oh yes, and Pied Crows (lots and lots and lots of
Pied Crows). My thought is that the Pied Crows were there just to spoil a
perfect setting. What happened every so often, was that just as I was composing
a photo and singling out one of the other birds, a crow would do one of the
following:
- photo-bomb the image from in front of the bird I wanted
- photo-bomb the image from behind the bird I wanted
- gather in large numbers and photo-bomb around the bird I wanted
- get so close to the hide that 90% of my view-finder was of an out-of-focus crow (I think they were admiring their images in the one-way glass a few inches from my nose), or
- hassle the bird that I wanted, to such an extent that the bird either flew away or changed to a position that I didn’t want. The only birds that were exempt from being interfered with by the crows were the Marabou Storks.
I suppose half the fun was trying to get images
without having a crow in the image as well, and I must admit, I did chuckle
every now and then when a crow snuck up behind a vulture and pulled a tail-feather!
The light unfortunately was not good, with the sky being quite heavily
overcast, but there was the odd, very few short occasions, when the sun did
break through the clouds and the light was quite pleasant for photography.
Hereunder some photos of that session at the
Scavengers Hill Hide:-
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| Woolly-necked Stork |
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| Marabou Stork |
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| Tawny Eagle |
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| White-backed Vulture |
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| Tawny Eagle and Pied Crow |
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| White-backed Vulture |
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| Pied Crow |
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| Wooly-necked Storks |
When Geordie came to fetch us at about 10:00, it was obvious
to me that the weather was going to turn even worse and I did not hold out much
hope for my last two sessions here…and as it turned out, I was right.
That afternoon we went for a drive to see if we could
find some wild dogs, which we duly did. Not to belabour a point, the weather
was terrible and because of this we left Doornhoek straight after lunch, at
about 14:00. The wind was howling and every now and then a drop or two of rain
fell – and to make matters even more unpleasant, it was quite cold. So much so
that when we found the dogs, the light was very poor, the dogs hardly
inter-acted with each other, choosing to rather take cover in some long grass,
so no decent images were taken here. This below my best of a bad bunch:-
To make a long story short, we eventually raced back
to Doornhoek as the rain had now begun to fall quite steadily and we were back
about two hours after we had set off. That night the weather really showed
itself to be a spoiler, and heavy winds and rain continued throughout the
night. We had decided at dinner that evening that we would make a call at about
07:00 the next morning as to what activity we would do, but because of the inclement
weather, I decided at that time to call it a day. A game drive would have been
very unpleasant (as animals, like humans, also take cover in the rain and wind)
the light was very poor and I didn’t fancy getting myself or my camera gear wet.
I had the option that instead of a game drive, of visiting the Bee-eater Hide
(or any of the other hides), but alas, the same conditions applied here, so
after breakfast I reluctantly packed up and we left for home.
Geordie had by this time procured a ‘closed’ vehicle
(as opposed to the open game drive vehicle) for our transfer back to the gate –
and what do we see en route? Lions, four or five of them, looking very
bedraggled and not happy with the weather conditions. Janice had her camera
with her and took a few images, but I didn’t bother, the light, in my opinion,
was just too bad.
Now, the severe weather notwithstanding, the two hide
sessions that I did have, were great. The Doornhoek Lodge and the staff were
all friendly and helpful and the food was good. The fact that the long-term
forecast was for bad weather for my entire visit, proved wrong. I did have clear
weather on my first afternoon, and reasonable weather on my first morning, so I
am pleased with my visit and would visit Zimanga again at the drop of a hat.
