Mpila Camp, Hluhluwe Imfolozi Game Reserve

KwaZulu Natal is a won­der­ful des­tin­a­tion to visit dur­ing winter, since its mild tem­per­at­ures allow you to escape the chill of other parts of the coun­try.  As part of our travels, we chose a visit to the Hluhluwe-Imfolozi Game Reserve, which was estab­lished in 1895, and is the old­est game park in Africa ...

One of the attrac­tions of select­ing this reserve, and Mpila camp in par­tic­u­lar, was that I could meet my young boys’ desire to camp, without hav­ing to sac­ri­fice my need for a little com­fort and some basic amen­it­ies. In fact the two bed­ded tents with en suite showers are any­thing but basic! I was thrilled to arrive and see two beau­ti­fully ten­ted bed­rooms, with wooden beds and cup­boards and elec­tri­city, (which is on from 08h00 to 22h00) together with a won­der­ful reeded bath­room with flush­ing loo and full pres­sure shower. Now this was camping!

A well-equipped kit­chen is con­nec­ted to the two tents by a wooden board­walk, which is raised above the ground to allow warthogs and impala to for­age below you, which they lit­er­ally do! Mpila is not a fenced off camp and so we were warned to watch our food on the braai, as the hyenas have a sneaky  means of remov­ing it once your back is turned! (You need to watch young chil­dren too.)

The only hassle is the pre­val­ence of mon­keys that seem to emerge the minute one starts to pre­pare a meal. They are per­sist­ent and you can leave noth­ing out, hence even the fridge has a dog leash lock on it. On one occa­sion I left the kettle on the stove and returned to find a mon­key drink­ing from it!

Bed time was most excit­ing when we cuddled up in our warm beds, zipped up the tents, which have moz­zie screens, and drif­ted off into total black­ness, punc­tu­ated by the odd hyena’s cry. The tents are well pro­tec­ted with moz­zie screens and have full mos­quito nets to enclose the beds, since Imfolozi falls into a mal­aria area. Another advant­age of trav­el­ling dur­ing the winter though, is that the threat of mal­aria is extremely low, and we did not take prophylactics.

During the early morn­ings and even­ings we gen­er­ally tried to take a drive and sighted an abund­ance of zebra, impala, wilde­beest, gir­affe, sev­eral rhi­nos, hyenas and even a few lions in the dis­tance. Our most excit­ing find was a pack of African Wild dogs, who had col­lapsed along­side the road, hav­ing indulged in an early morn­ing kill. Mpila can eas­ily be nav­ig­ated in a stand­ard vehicle, though a raised one is always bet­ter to spot the more rare spe­cies. We opted for a night drive run by the camp, which leaves at 18h00 and returns around 21h00. We did not see much that we had not spot­ted dur­ing the day, other than a few bun­nies, but the excite­ment of trav­el­ling in an open, raised vehicle, ensured that my young boys adop­ted a noc­turnal cycle!

Mpila has a small shop for emer­gency sup­plies, but there is no res­taur­ant. The full reserve tra­verses an expanse of 960 km² and so one needs to be select­ive about the areas you choose to cover.

Our three nights in the ten­ted camp cost R350 per adult and R175 per child per night (2009 rates), together with a R90 per per­son per day con­ser­va­tion levy (R45 for chil­dren). Our game drive cost R250 per adult and R125 per child.

Useful Links:
Hluhluwe Attractions
Hluhluwe Umfolozi Game Reserve
Hluhluwe Accommodation
Hluhluwe Hotels & Lodges