It is always the way, you have a nice room and end up having a rubbish night's sleep. At least I did, apart from aching from her falls and the exertions of fighting the wind, Debs had a good night.
Waking to a fairly calm day raised my tired spirits, although Debs spotting that she had a puncture in her rear tyre dampened them a little. Instead of fixing it there and then, we went to breakfast and decided to sort it out later. Having had a good breakfast we returned to fix the puncture. By now I am pretty professional at it and we were soon loaded and on our way.
There isn't much to say about the road to Hluhluwe (sort of pronounced shu-shloue) except that it was pretty rolling and fairly uninteresting. Riding on the N2 highway means that traffic is our constant companion, which doesn't make for the most peaceful of rides. Fortunately we are generally given plenty of room although, as I have previously mentioned, it is quite common to drive in the hard shoulder here.
At around midday we turned off towards and then rode through Hluhluwe, stopping in the local Spar supermarket to get some lunch and a few supplies along the way. Leaving the town we had a 8km ride along a generally good dirt road to reach Bushbaby lodge.
The dirt road went without incident except when we had to negotiate our way round a huge lorry that had clearly got itself stuck. We have no idea if the truck was supposed to be on this road, knowing Africa the driver probably just felt like a change. It may well mean that he gets a change of jobs as well!
The bush baby lodge is very nice and we are the only ones in the camp-site, possibly the only ones staying. The pool was a little bit cold, but we still braved a dip. Later this evening we should get to see the owner feed the resident bush babies and there is always the possibility of a cold beer to round off the day. Tomorrow we should make it to St Lucia wetlands park where we plan to stop for a few nights.
The bush-baby feeding turned out to be a total highlight. We had been told that the feeding would start at 7pm and sure enough as the time arrived several incredibly sweet bush-babies arrived. We were able to feed them pieces of chopped banana that, the older one at least, delicately took out of our hands.
The other younger ones were a bit more eager, but were still very gentle. Photographs were difficult, as they are obviously nocturnal animals but we did our best.
It is not every day that you get to feed bush-babies!
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