After we finished checking in at Tuzi Gazi marina we wandered over to the Zulu Land Yacht Club to check it out and see if they had any space for us. The world ARC rally was coming in a couple of days with 22 big boats but they still found a great spot for us and were super friendly. We loved it straight away. Big grassy areas all around with lots of BBQ Or Braais as they call them and a good bar with cheap beer, couldn't ask for much more?! The floating pontoons were in a lot better shape also than Tuzi Gazi and you could point your bow into the Southerly wind, were as the other marina you are side onto it and there were many problems with pontoons breaking up. The only downside was most of our friends stayed in Tuzi Gazi as they prefered being closer to all the restaurants ect but it's still not far to go and catch up with them. It got busy when the 22 ARC boats arrived and was a good buzz with lots of Braais and beers going down but after a week they were gone, on a mission to sail around the world without taking a breath, good luck to them;)
My South African friend Simon who has a boat is Langkawi also came up to see us which was great to catch up over a few beers.
We did a few boat jobs including cleaning out our 3 water tanks properly. The water we got in Madagascar didn't do much for our stomachs so was good to get them cleaned out with bleach and properly flushed out and was surprising how much sediment was in the bottom! We also fitted a second automatic bilge pump with an alarm which we had been meaning to do for a while.
Then it was time to go and explore, we hired a cheap little buzz box and bought a tent and went for a drive up north into the parks. Was brilliant. We drove the first day up to the north enterance at Umfolozi game park and stayed at a backpackers not more than 5 mins from the gate. Up at 5 the next morning
And in the rain we drove in, animals were pretty quiet to start with but as the morning progressed we saw a heap, pretty well everything except chetah and leopards. Ended up driving until 2pm doing over 150kms through the park and was knackered after it, lots of concentration driving dodging potholes and looking for animals but was definitely worth it. We then drove to Cape Vidal which is another game park were you can camp, we arrived late arvo and set up our tent and stayed a couple of nights.
Very nice place, right on the beach with good campsites, a popular place for the locals to get away for the weekend. A little bit worrying though that our neighbour said the next morning that late that night after coming out of the toilet block and there was a chetah there looking at him! Apparently there haven't been any attacks for a long time;)
We also went on a boat trip on the lake and saw hippos and crocodiles which was pretty good.
Then it was back to the yacht club to clean and pack up Sunflower ready to leave on our flights back home.
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