15 December Horse riding in iSimangaliso Wetland Park

On the advice of friends Glenys and Neville of Alba we booked a two hour horse riding safari in the St Lucia Game Reserve, the southern end of iSimangaliso Wetland Park, a World Heritage Site and oldest game park in South Africa. St Lucia is just over an hours drive from Richards Bay so an easy distance for a day trip.

water buck

Our ride time was 10.30am enabling us a leisurely start to the day. When we arrived at the Bhangazi stables we discovered it was going to be a personal safari, no other guests, just David and me with guide Lucas and our back up rider. Both David and I had horses when we were growing up and like to think of ourselves as experienced-but-rusty. The horse we were given were Boer Arabs; horses brought to Africa by the Boers crossed with arabs, about 15.2h, the saddles are like western saddles with a high pommel and no knee pads.

Lucas guided us to see zebras with foals at foot grazing with water bucks. Water bucks provide more protection from predators. In this park that would be leopard, wild dogs and pythons. There aren't any lions or cheetahs here. We also saw impala and little red duikers. There was some trotting and some good canters along sand tracks. Two hours can go past very quickly.

Finished with our morning horse riding we then went in to the park officially with the car with the intent to drive up as far as Cape Vidal.

There aren't any restaurants in this park, so we'd brought our lunch with us. We stopped by a waterhole and watched three hippopotamuses, a large Nile crocodile and a couple of white rhinoceros which came to drink and graze. For the rest of the afternoon we looped around the loop roads through forest, down to the beach and site in a hide looking out over the plain. There was the odd water buffalo, more antelopes and plenty of birds and lovely scenery, but no elephants or giraffes. I believe you see them more in the north part of the park. We went as far as Cape Vidal camp site which was buzzing with people enjoying the beach. On our way out of the park at 5pm the two rhinos we'd seen earlier were grazing by the side of the road. This time we were close enough to see that their horns had been removed to protect them from poachers.

We enjoyed our day in the Reserve, enjoyed going riding (and incredibly didn't suffer saddle soreness afterwards) and an afternoon immersed in natural beauty.