South Africa and Swaziland, Christmas 2006

Toro Yaka Take 2

Back to Toro Yaka

We made it back to Toro Yaka in the evening, and had a great New Year's Eve buffet feast put together by Nicole. Much wine was drunk, and we were up pretty late/early. The following day we were allowed a sleep in, but I was still up at 6:30, because I’m stupid like that. We basically vegged out all day, before a game walk in the late afternoon.

The following day we had a day trip to the Maholoholo Rehab centre, although it wasn’t apparent that they ever re-habilitated any of the animals, as all the animals kept there were not ever going to be released ‘due to a lack of habitat’. So it was like being at a zoo, really. They also had a cheetah that we were ‘allowed’ to touch – I declined, as the ‘story’ behind the tameness of this cheetah was that she was taken away from her mother at a week old to become an ambassador for her species. Yeah right. I’d rather the ambassadors were still living wild, than taken away from their mothers for absolutely no good reason. Also, seeing some of the large eagles trying and failing to fly in their cramped cages was not great. There was one high point though, when we were taken into the vulture cage the vultures started attacking our toes, and the guy taking us around starting yelling ‘Abort! Abort!’ and shoving us all back outside before too much blood was spilled!

The next day we had another trip, this time to a Cheetah breeding centre, and then to a Reptile park. The Cheetah breeding project I actually quite liked, as it appeared to have a mission and a plan to get there, rather than the unprofessional rubbish of the one the day before.  The Reptile Park was interesting, but I didn’t expect that we would be handling the snakes, and didn’t particularly want to, not because I’m scared of snakes (I lived in Australia, for god’s sake, I have a healthy respect for them, but I’m certainly not scared), but because it looked tricky, and the one thing I do know about snakes is that if you see one, the dumbest thing you can do is start poking it with a stick, so I didn’t quite get the point of doing it. In the end I caved in to the pressure to pick it up, but I declined to wander around with it. After this, they wanted us to pick up scorpions and spiders as well, which again seemed slightly foolish to me – trust me, if you go to Australia and see a very large black hairy spider, definitely best to NOT pick it up. 

The next day, we again split into two groups, and the group I was in had a game walk in the morning, then a game drive in the afternoon. The game walk was good, and we had Bert from Masodini along as the gun-toter (as Steve had broken his hand), and Bert’s guests, who coincidentally were a couple that had joined us at the Kapama Cheetah place the day before. Had a great walk through some beautiful scenery, and got some sunrise shots. Also saw a dead elephant – about three months dead, but it still stank.

We had another couple join us for the game drive that afternoon, this time some delightful older ladies from New York. Not a great game drive again, unfortunately, as the driver seemed oddly averse to ever stopping the jeep, no matter what we saw, and once again we headed off on a long, fruitless lion hunt, so saw nothing else for hours. The drive was mostly characterised by cries of 'What was that? There...oh never mind' as we flew past waterbuck, elephant, impala, warthog, giraffe, wildebees and baboon as if we were trying to break some kind of safari speed record.

So, I didn't have a great game drive again, but I'd seen so much in the Kruger, that was ok. Later on that night there were some words exchanged as tempers boiled over a little, and there was an argument about the drive and the refusal of the driver to do anything at all asked of him. I'm not going to re-hash it, it was unpleasant enough the first time round, but I would say that based on the two drives I had with them, I really cannot recommend Siyabona for game drives. That being said however, we did seem to just be very unlucky in our drivers, as the other half of the group didn't have any problems on their drives. 

The following morning there was a last game walk, but I didn’t go, still feeling a little frazzled by the drama the night before. We then had a long drive back to Johannesburg airport, and then the flight home to London.

So, did I enjoy it? Yes, despite the two game drives, it was great, the lodge was wonderful, the Kruger was superb as always (although definitely works better as a self-drive option).