The jolly, familiar chatter of a dark-capped bulbul from a nearby tree reminds me how relaxing it is to sit in a suburban garden full of birds. But then, further away, from the densely wooded valley below, I hear the call of a purple-crested turaco. And later, the baby-like howl of a trumpeter hornbill. These aren’t garden birds - these are birds that tell you you’re in a wild, exotic place.
I took a late afternoon drive from Ntshondwe, the main rest camp at Ithala Game Reserve. Almost immediately out of the camp gate, I turned left onto a dirt track. The main entrance road from the nearby town of Louwsburg is tarred all the way to Ntshondwe, but within the reserve most roads are dirt, and some, like the Nghubu Loop I’m on now, are 4×4 tracks. But the first couple of hundred metres were easy to traverse and brought me to the Mgamgela viewpoint.
Ithala is richly blessed with viewpoints where you can get out of your car and sit on a bench or stand on a deck to observe the landscape. In fact, even though you’ll see enough wildlife on a game drive, this
