Author Archives: DeWetsWild

About DeWetsWild

Nature and wildlife enthusiast and tour guide, based in Pretoria, South Africa.

The rugged beauty of Mission Rocks

Today a very popular picnic and fishing spot north of St. Lucia Town in the iSimangaliso Wetland Park, Mission Rocks is named for a Catholic mission station established in the area in 1888. The path leading from the parking area to the beach opens onto a scene of rugged, rocky beauty, revealing rock pools teeming with life at low tide and impressing with the thundering of crashing waves at high tide. There’s a sandy, open beach 500m northwards of the rocks, with a sea-cave where thousands of bats roost.

Mission Rocks

Mission Rocks picnic spot

Mission Rocks

de Wet family shadows at Mission Rocks

Mission Rocks

Keep an eye open for the vervet monkeys while having a picnic at Mission Rocks

Natal Rock Crab at Mission Rocks

Mission Rocks

Fiscal flycatcher

On the way to Mission Rocks, the uMziki viewpoints and picnic site, set right in the coastal forest, is a worthwhile stop. From atop the dune there’s views over Lake Saint Lucia to the west and the Indian Ocean to the east, and down below in the forested picnic site there’s an astounding variety of birds that would normally be very shy but here seems quite habituated to having humans around. There’s also usually a couple of red duiker to be seen.

uMziki viewpoint over Lake Saint Lucia

uMziki viewpoint over Indian Ocean

uMziki viewpoint

Golden-tailed woodpecker

White-eared barbet

Livingstone’s turaco

Red-capped robin-chat

Red duiker

St. Lucia’s Crocodile Centre

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Lake Saint Lucia is the core of a vast ecosystem, rightfully included in South Africa’s first designated World Heritage Site, the iSimangaliso Wetland Park. The Crocodile Centre, managed by Ezemvelo KZN Wildlife at the Bhangazi Gate into the Park, and the self-guided trails in the adjacent game park, offers an excellent introduction to this Park of “miracles and wonders” (the English meaning of the isiZulu word iSimangaliso). It also has the best stocked curio shop in town and a lovely tea garden.

Educational displays at the Crocodile Centre

Cycad garden

Curio shop

Wildlife abounds in the game park next to the Crocodile Centre, this is a warthog

Wildlife abounds in the game park next to the Crocodile Centre, this is a mixed herd of blue wildebeest and plains zebra

Of course the crocodiles, an integral part of the lake’s ecological functioning, are the star attractions. On display are not only specimens of our indigenous Nile Crocodiles ranging in size from newly hatched babies to “monsters” over 4m in length, but the centre also houses Dwarf and Slender-Snouted Crocodiles from tropical Africa and a couple of American Alligators. You can also try your hand at spotting another of iSimangaliso’s very secretive inhabitants, the extremely venomous and expertly camouflaged Gaboon Adder.

St. Lucia Crocodile Centre

Nile crocodile

American Alligator

Nile Crocodile

Nile crocodile

Gaboon adder (captive)

Dwarf Crocodile

Slender-snouted Crocodile

The centre’s beautiful gardens are a magnet for other wildlife, and we always get a kick from the humorous signs (to us, anyway).

Better heed the signs!

Black-bellied Starling

Better heed the signs!

Olive Sunbird

Vervet monkey

Saint Lucia is a unique town, located on a wedge of land at the mouth of Lake St. Lucia, between the lake and the Indian Ocean, and entirely surrounded by the iSimangaliso Wetland Park. All kinds of wildlife roam the town, including hippopotamus and leopard. Right in town, a magnificent piece of coastal forest can be explored along the Gwalagwala Trail. A number of private operators offer guided tours of the area, and several launch-tours operate on the estuary. Two camping areas and a host of privately run establishments offers overnight accommodation, and the town has most of the facilities you’d expect (shops, restaurants, doctor, fuel station, boat club, picnic sites), making St. Lucia an excellent base for a bush-and-beach holiday.

Cruising Lake St. Lucia

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Participating in a guided launch tour of Lake St. Lucia is one of the most memorable experiences to be had in the iSimangaliso Wetland Park. Several operators offer tours lasting about two hours and departing at different times of the day. In this time the cruisers move about 8km up into the lake from the jetties in St. Lucia town, bringing visitors close to a variety of aquatic life and giving an interesting glimpse into the ecology of the lake system.

During our recent visit to iSimangaliso, we enjoyed a tour on the 80-seater Santa Lucia, a joint operation between Ezemvelo KZN Wildlife and Thompsons Tours. A cashbar on board sells drinks and snacks while a guide gives detailed explanations of the surroundings and wildlife encountered along the way. We passed several pods of hippos (witnessing one naughty youngster chewing on another tourboat), a few crocodiles, numerous birds, wildlife on the shore, got a chance to view the mangrove marshes and even saw a shark’s dorsal fin briefly break the water’s surface.

This gallery should give you some idea of what you can look forward to on a guided launch tour of Lake Saint Lucia!

Santa Lucia

Getting up close to a crocodile

Tours on the lake

Mangrove stand

Santa Lucia

Santa Lucia jetty at Siyabonga Market

Hippo close-up

Hippo

Baby hippo

Swimming crocodile

Crocodile on shore

Great white egret

Curious hippos

Crocodile on shore

Mangrove roots

Goliath Heron

Hippo

Pod of hipos

Egyptian Goose

Making waves

Mangrove roots

Buffalo o the shore

Caspian Tern

African Fish Eagle flypast

Hungry hungry hippo!

Ian Player on the African Wilderness

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“We’ve got three million years of Africa imprinted on our psyche…to see how people are gripped by the spirit of Africa, particularly at night when they sleep on the red earth, that very ancient earth, and they dream their dreams. There is a connection that is evoked from the depths of the collective unconsciousness that has drawn us all together. And also when they hear the leopard at night. That rasping call. It sparks something inside…It is an experience that has awakened thousands of people to the value of African wilderness, and the understanding that it was once their home. And it inspires them to protect it, because it is the landscape of the human soul.”

(The late Dr. Ian Player in an address to the eighth World Wilderness Congress.)

Ian Player

Ineke, who blogs at “I scrap 2“, kindly invited us to join in the “3 days, 3 quotes challenge”. We in turn extend an open invitation to all de Wets Wild’s friends to join in, and we look forward to the wise words you have to share!

Robert McCammon on Africa’s elephants

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“They say that somewhere in Africa the elephants have a secret grave where they go to lie down, unburden their wrinkled grey bodies, and soar away, light spirits at the end.”

Robert McCammon

Robert McCammon

Muse

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Out in South Africa’s wild places it’s very difficult not to be enamoured with our magnificent sunrises and sunsets. This photograph was taken at Lake Panic, near Skukuza in the Kruger National Park.

Muse

“Muse” is the theme for this week’s WordPress Photo Challenge

Richard Mullin on Africa

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“The only man I envy is the man who has not yet been to Africa; for he has so much to look forward to.”

Richard Mullin.

Richard Mullin

Samango Monkey

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Cercopithecus mitis

The Samango Monkey is one of South Africa’s less well-known primates, being restricted to the densely vegetated habitats along the coast and adjacent hinterland of the Eastern Cape and Kwazulu-Natal and the escarpment forests of Mpumalanga and Limpopo provinces.

Males are considerably stronger built than females, and weigh up to 11kg.

Male Samango Monkey

Female Samango Monkey

Samango Monkey

Samango Monkey (photo by Niel de Wet)

Samango Monkeys are to be found only in indigenous forests and on their edges, where they feed on fruits, flowers, leaves, seeds, insects, bark, eggs, nestlings and small mammals and reptiles. Troops number up to 70 individuals, though usually far fewer with 20 being the average, and are lead by between one and five adult males. They are strictly diurnal and much more arboreal than the vervet monkey, their better known and more widely distributed South African cousin. Single babies are born in the summer months. Forest predators, like leopards, crowned eagles and pythons, are their biggest natural enemies.

Samango Monkey

Male Samango Monkey

Samango Monkey in Hilltop Camp

Samango Monkey

Samango Monkeys grooming in a treetop

Samango Monkey

Samango Monkey (photo by Marilize)

Samango Monkey

Male Samango Monkey

Samango Monkey

Samango Monkey (photo by Joubert)

Samango Monkey

Samango Monkey (photo by Joubert)

Samango Monkeys

Samango Monkey

Known elsewhere in Africa as the Sykes’ or Blue Monkey, with several recognised subspecies, the race of Samango Monkey occurring in South Africa is considered “vulnerable” by the IUCN, as they occur mostly in small numbers in highly fragmented habitats, with little genetic exchange between subpopulations. We’ve encountered Samango Monkeys in the Hluhluwe-Imfolozi Park, Tembe Elephant Park and in the Oribi Gorge, but it is only at Cape Vidal in the iSimangaliso Wetland Park that you’d be virtually guaranteed to see this special species as they’ve become quite habituated to the human presence and boldly raid even the best protected picnic basket…

This leucistic Samango Monkey is a familiar inhabitant of Cape Vidal

These are all camera trap photos of samango monkeys at Cape Vidal

Samango Monkey

Samango Monkeys

Samango Monkey

Samango Monkeys

Samango Monkey

Samango Monkeys

Samango Monkey

Samango Monkeys

Samango Monkeys with a bushbuck in the background

Samango Monkey

Samango Monkeys

Samango Monkey with a bushbuck in the background

Samango Monkeys

Samango Monkey with a bushbuck in the background

Samango Monkeys with a bushbuck in the background

Samango Monkey with a bushbuck in the background

Samango Monkeys with abushbuck in the background

Samango Monkeys and a bushbuck in the background

Samango Monkeys

Samango Monkey

Samango Monkey mom and baby

Variegated Slug Eater

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Duberria variegata

While visiting the iSimangaliso Wetland Park recently, we came across this tiny snake at the Amazibu Hide between St. Lucia Town and Cape Vidal.

Variegated Slugeater (2) Variegated Slugeater (4)

Referring to our copy of the Field Guide to Snakes and Other Reptiles of Southern Africa (Bill Branch, Third Edition 1998), Marilize suspected it to be a Variegated or Spotted Slug Eater, an identification confirmed with the assistance of the helpful people at the SA Reptiles Forum.

These snakes are endemic to a very small piece of South Africa’s north-eastern and Mozambique’s southern coastline, occurring in dune forests and grasslands (habitat in abundance at iSimangaliso). It burrows in leaf litter and sandy substrates and, as its name suggests, feeds on slugs and snails. Females give birth to between 7 and 20 live young, about 10cm in length, in late summer, which would mean the 12cm-long specimen we encountered was still quite young (Adults grow to between 22cm and 34cm).

Just goes to show that no matter how much time you spend in natural environments, there’s always something new to discover and interesting to learn!