Honeymoon Part 4

Our last destination was Umdloti, further down the north coast. There we stayed for three nights, two nights at one apartment and one at another. Both places were luxury beach apartments which were superb! The apartments were on the beach front but this didn't make much difference as the weather was terrible the entire stay. Both apartments gave us champagne and sherry, which was perfect for the weather.

Apartment 1

The view


Apartment 2

From day one it was overcast and rainy but we did get to walk on the beach and even got to see dolphins (N was hoping for whales since it was whale season but we weren't in luck).

The weather


Umdloti Beach


Umhlanga Beach


Sand art on Umhlanga Beach


The lighthouse


All in all we had the most brilliant honeymoon and I could not have asked for more!

Honeymoon Part 3

Our next stop was St. Lucia, where we stayed at Seasands Lodge for two nights. St. Lucia is small town, visited by fisherman and tourists, and known mainly for being mostly surrounded by water. On the one side is the ocean and on the other is the estuary. If you go to the right places you'll discover that St. Lucia is a stunning destination. The estuary is really quite shallow (just over a 1.5mtr deep in parts) and is home to crocodiles, hippos and tons of bird life.

Our accommodation


On our first day we went on a boat trip up the estuary and got to see loads of hippos and a crocodile, and a gorgeous sunset.


The next day was the best! We packed lots of drinks and a picnic basket and spent the day at Cape Vidal. Cape Vidal is a game reserve with the best of both worlds. There is wildlife (rhinos, buck, buffalo, leopard and so much more), with the estuary on one side and beautiful beaches on the other side. Our first stop was a lookout point to see all the beauty of this wetland, then Mission Rocks (part of Cape Vidal). After quite a long drive we arrived at the beach area. This beach stretches as far as the eye can see. The long white beach was gorgeous and perfect for snorkeling, except that the sea was a bit rough that day so our hired snorkeling gear was unused. We lay on the beach for a while then had a quick swim and off we went for the rest of the drive. We saw rhino, warthogs and monkeys on the way back. When we left Cape Vidal we went to St. Lucia beach and saw where the ocean met the estuary, and also got a very close up look at the playful hippos (they were just 10 mtr away from us with no fences).

Mission rocks


The estuary from Cape Vidal


Cape Vidal Beach


The rhino


Where the ocean and estuary meet


The hippos in the estuary


St. Lucia Beach

Honeymoon Part 2

This part was definitely our favourite part of the honeymoon. We stayed at Thula Thula Private Game Reserve for three nights. We could not have asked for a more indulgent stay!

On the Saturday we left from Blythedale Beach and made our way up to Thula Thula. It was about a three hour drive. Once we arrived we parked our car and were collected by our game ranger and our tracker. They took us through to our chalet and showed us where everything was and got settled in.

Here's our ranger, David and our tracker, Promise. And my lovely N of course!


The lodge has no fences so the animals are free to roam wherever they want. The gardens consisted of huge high trees, long bright green lawns, all surrounded by thick lush bush. The tranquility of this place was incredible!

Here's some pic's of the place


This what a normal day at Thula Thula consists of:
Early morning game drive (with a stop half way for hot chocolate, Amarula and rusks)
Gourmet breakfast
Bush walk
Gourmet lunch
Iced tea / iced coffee at 16:00
Late afternoon / Early evening game drive (with a stop half way for sundowners and snacks)
Gourmet dinner

We took full advantage of having the entire lodge to ourselves for almost our whole stay. This meant that we had exclusivity to our game ranger and tracker, so could do whatever we wanted and whenever we wanted.

On our very first game drive we were charged by a over protective male elephant, Mabula. This was the highlight of our trip! Having this massive animal charge your vehicle knowing that it could very well kill you was such an experience. We didn't realise the severity of the situation until we sped away from the heard and got told by the ranger how dangerous it actually was. There were many babies in the heard and the young male was hoping to be the next in charge, so he was trying to show he could very well be in charge.


We returned to the lodge and had a boma dinner. The food at Thula is spectacular to say the least. Everything is 5 star! Breakfast is a three course meal as well as lunch, but dinner is a four course meal. We opted for variety in the settings in which we ate. Our first nights dinner was in the boma with the fire, second was a private dinner and third was at the luxury tented camp for something a little less rich.

Here's one days menu:

Breakfast
Freshly baked croissants and muffins, cheese, jam
Fruit salad
Potato rosti topped w/ spinach, tomato, mozzarella and scrambled egg.

Lunch
Smoked salmon and couscous salad
Chicken and spinach roulade w/ pumpkin dish
Trio of chocolate tarts

Dinner
Curried courgette soup
Fried aubergine and roast pepper salad w/ yoghurt and cucumber dressing
Grilled sweet chili chicken breasts on a sweet potato cake with chili chocolate sauce
Amarula creme brule w/ nougatine ice cream


In the following few days we ate like kings, went on game drives, game walks, drank great wine and relaxed. We saw loads of animals - elephant, buffalo, zebra, giraffe, nyala, impala, kudu, a Mozambican spitting cobra and lots more. We even had the heard of elephant by the lodge. It was too good to be true to be eating lunch and watching the elephants come closer and closer to us. I would go back in a heart beat, I never expected to have such an attachment to a place! I was so sad to leave. Pure luxury in nature at its best.

Honeymoon Part 1

Finally I get to do this. Married life or life in general has been busy so far, so I'm really pleased to finally get some time to post about our gorgeous honeymoon.

We stayed at various places along the upper north coast of South Africa, so logically each place will have the title of a different part.

On the Monday after our wedding we left a bit later than we had hoped, probably about 6:30 in the morning, to our first destination in Blythedale Beach. Blythedale Beach is a fairly secluded area and whats nice about it is that they have very strict building regulations, so no high buildings to take away from the deserted look of the forest-like area, which is beautiful.

We arrived in about 7 hours at Palm Dune Beach Lodge where we would be staying for 5 nights. The place was lovely, but not really what we had been expecting (Mauritius had set our expectations too high maybe). After being moved to another room we were still a bit dissapointed but settled in as nicely as we could.

Here's some pictures of the lodge



Rain had been predicted for the entire week while we were there which really put a damper on things. The lodge offered numerous activities which we were interested in (kayaking, forest walks, etc.) but due to the weather weren't able to partake in any of them. So for a week we spent a lot of time driving to various places to do stuff, which worked out perfectly in the end as we did a ton of things we would ordinarily not have gotten to do.

Some of the highlights were:

Visiting Crocodile Creek, a crocodile farm, where I stroked and sat beside an alligator (not a croc).


Horse riding in Umdloti through the sugar cane fields with the beach on our side. My horse was a bit mad though. He'd suddenly eat all the sugar cane that he could then tried to galop away. It was so much fun!


Doing the Karkloof Canopy Tour in the pouring rain. It was amazing! This is what the "tour" is "The canopy tour involves traversing from one platform to another along a steel cable suspended up to 30m above the forest floor. The tour comprises seven platforms and eight slides that zig-zag down a pristine forested valley. The scenery and bird life is spectacular and professional guides provide interesting facts about the forest ecology during the tour." We were so high up and there was so much mist and rain that we didn't get to see too much of the forest but the whole experience of being put in a harness and "sliding" down huge cables through a dense forest was too good to be true. We were soaking wet when we finished, even our socks were muddy and wet. But on return we were greeted with lunch and hot chocolate, which warmed things up.



Management of the lodge where we were staying really did do their best to make our stay memorable. On our first night we got a complementary dinner and wine. Twice during our stay we'd return after a long day out to champagne, chocolates and flowers (and sometimes muffins) in our room. And on our last night we had a private dinner with more champagne on our patio complete with our own waiter standing by the whole night.