Emma @ 2.5 Months. Swaziland was a real epic. Campers: Cavan, Sue, Josh and us. (Emma = 10 weeks)
The day started with Cavan having his car filled with his holiday goodies being stolen outside our house. After sitting around for two hours and guarding cars the police contacted us to say they had found the car but that all the stuff inside it was gone and that the car would not move. The thieves had completely destroyed his wiring system trying to start the car but they did manage to remove his CD shuttle! Then it was time for him to shop for more jocks and socks as well as a bike as the Swaziland trip was supposed to be a biking trip. Little old Lily the Landrover left for Swaziland while Cavan and Josh replenished Cavan’s clothes supplies. After a very long trip we finally met at the border at 5pm that night after us being up from 3am that morning.

Emma was really grumpy from the the trip and I have discovered that she does not like to sleep in her Piccolo safety chair, she seems to associate sitting up with playing (lying down is for sleeping). After that I sat with her and her carry cot in the back where she slept much better than on the trip up.

The first place that we camped was Malalotja which is on the South African-Swaziland border. It is really mountainous and horrendously pretty but also freezing cold. The condensation on the inside of our tent had frozen during the night it was soooooo cold. Emma of course was under every blanket that she owned – it must have been a twenty cm pile with double hats, mittens, vests, socks and booties. She coped well and did not wake up very often, when she did she was whipped into our sleeping bags pretty promptly so as not to freeze. The first night ended in happy relief that it was finally day time and we knew we could only get warmer – Cavan’s mattress had deflated in the night so he had also spent the night sleeping on the cold floor in a real meaning of life sleeping bag. He was really glad to move into our tent in the morning and wait for his coffee to warm up.

We tried an early morning ride with us waking a peacefully sleeping Emma to go into her backpack, she did not appreciated the whole ordeal and the cycle ended in me walking back with her to camp (luckily we had not gone far). We decided that the next ride would happen when she was awake. This worked really well with her enjoying the ride and she eventually fell asleep so it must have been really comfy and good.

Sue, Josh and Cavan walked down to the famous Malalotja falls. Vaughn, Emma and I stayed at the lookout as we had already done this treacherous walk on our first trip to Swaziland. (most of the walk is at a 45 to 60 degree angle up and down) Cavan in true Os style found two Swedish babes who he diligently chatted up, fed his chocolate too, fed fillet, beer and other things and then they went home! The only woman who eventually shared his bed was Emma and there was no way he was going to score with her unless it involved her rattly ball and frogs!

That night we were all much better organised and did not freeze to death. Vaughn and Cavan went for a really long ride to another lookout in the park with Josh driving the girls as there were many up and downhills. Cavan ate dirt on the way to the lookout and arrived dripping blood from the left side of his body (obviously the car was a sign of things to come.) We then packed up and headed to Mlilwane.

After the courteous wardens at the nature reserve Mlilwane was a bit of a shock. First they charged us to take in our bikes – R30 a pop! Cavan said we only had 3 bikes and that we would only ride for one day, they were not pleased about this at all. When we went through the gate they charged after the Smurf yelling, “You have five bikes, you have five bikes – stop!”. Sue had to dutifully inform them that 2 of us would not be riding as we had a small baby to look after – that seemed to placate them. We then went and paid for our campsite and the disgruntled cars moved off to find this very expensive campsite. To our shock and horror the campsite was hard, brown sand under blue gums with nothing else (no braai facilities, water, ablutions). Sue and Josh went off to complain and we were then allowed to camp on the little piece of lawn in front of the Beehive accommodation – big wow! In retaliation we took over the place and did a really good job of spreading our stuff around and making ourselves at home just to find out that there is not hot water after Emma has got undressed and is waiting diligently for her bath!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Much grumpiness!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

On the bright side – we all went for a really nice morning ride around the park with us splitting into two groups to live up to the official three people bike riding pass, Emma once again really enjoyed herself, with dad the expert biker keeping her happy and not cycling over huge rocks etc. We also got to go on a really fun 4×4 trail were many of the roads had become “wish roads” (roads that the park wished were there but did not actually exist!) but we did have fun driving through mud, over shale and down dongas. Cavan took photos of the mud adventures and was nearly driven over by the Smurf that was using Beach buggy tactics to not get stuck in the mud. We were very impressed with the way that the Pajero handled on the “adventure” but we are still definitely Landy supporters.

After the disillusionment of Mlilwane we decided to give the sister reserve – Hlane – a skip and we decided to try and head for the last reserve. Josh and Cavan went off to play golf in Mbabane and the rest of us took Lily and headed off to the Swazi candle shop after the man at Mlilwane telling us that he was glad that we were leaving! (not very impressed campers!) After buying everything in sight at the candle shop Vaughn remembered that he had left his reading glasses at the last campsite, so we got to go back and explain to the rude gate attendant our dilemma. He had the look of incredulous disbelief as he opened the gate for us to get the glasses (he must of thought we were going to try and sneak in another ride without paying!)

We then headed to Mlawula – the last reserve – stopping to eat the obligatory crisp sandwiches on the way. We arrived at Mlawula to be told that the campsite had washed away in the floods earlier this year and we would not be able to camp, but we did manage to confirm our bookings for the tented camp 2 nights later. That left us with little choice but to go to Hlane – with dread in our heart we turned around and headed back to the reserve.

We now had to wait for Josh and Cavan to return from golfing and somehow alert them of the fact that the plans had changed! We decided to park on the side of the road close to the park entrance and wait for them. The chairs come out for what we thought would be a reasonably long wait (it was now 3pm), the chair then migrated to the top of the landy with tea being made, books being read and Emma being fed… All this time we were providing entertainment to the national highway as people gawked, waved, stared, hooted etc. By 5pm we were a little antsy about making it into the reserve in time as we thought the gates closed at 6pm – the next hour was spent making contingency plans for stopping the Smurf. 5:30 pm a taxi driver stops to tell us to move off as darkness brings lions and the more threatening totsies (burglars and other bad men) It was eventually decided that we would leave Vaughn on the road side and try and book into the camp at 5:45pm – this is when we discovered that the gates actually closed at 5pm – after much explaining we finally managed to convince the gate man that we had a real problem and that our friends had obviously “broken down” on the road and would need to be let into the camp later. We then shot off back to the main road to find Vaughn and wait for the Smurf. Sue spotted them racing down the road and started bouncing up and down as the Smurf sped past at 6:05pm (all gates close at 6pm!) by luck they spotted Sue and we charged back to the campsite to put up tents in the dark AGAIN!

After our nerve wracking wait we finally got camp up and dinner on the go and then it was to bed for a well deserved sleep! The next morning we went for a game drive in Lily with Josh, Cavan and Sue dodging spiders the size of saucers and the occasional thorn tree while on the roofrack. We on the other hand had a very restful drive and looked for the occasional animal. Hlane was also hit by the floods and there was evidence of cars that had been deeply stuck in the mud and there were newly graded roads everywhere. Cavan was adopted by an Ostrich in the camp – he hand fed it, a very brave move indeed! This resulted in the Ostrich following Cavan everywhere – he even came to lend a hand when Cavan was searching for an elusive hole in his blow up mattress (another Osborne calamity). He helped by trying to eat Cavan’s arm and taking an occasional peck at the mattress – for that he got a slap and promptly sat down and pecked air! Emma also contributed to the whole mattress fixing episode and was bounced up and down the wet mattress in search of the hole, she ended the day with a nice bath in Cavan’s bucket in front of the waterhole!

It was then off to the gem of the trip – the tented camp at Mlawula. This is a nature reserve on the Swaziland-Mozambique border, so naturally it was much hotter than the other places and Emma got to swan around in her nappy. This park was really badly damaged by the floods and most of the roads had washed away – these were duly tackled by the bicycle squad with me being the first to give up and head home. The warden told us that his car was stuck at the entrance gate for 4 months and he could not move it as both bridges had washed away – the entrance became an island in the torrents of water – must of been pretty impressive!

Well the tented camp was awesome and definitely worth the money and the wait! They consisted of large tents with 2 beds, a cupboard and other luxuries. This lead onto a deck that overlooked a valley – the tents are on a cliff (very cool). The bathrooms are open air and overlook the valley, this caused much excitement as we all ascertained that Cavan had the best bathroom and all booked slots to bath and shower at his spot. Of course there was the obligatory photo session of this unique experience (Sue and Josh showered with their clothes on and scolded us for our pictures – they were very discreet with only Emma revealing herself to the camera!).

We decided to take a scenic route with a few passes to get home. This caused much excitement as the road to the border consisted of a one lane road with a no overtaking sign. We were rather dubious that it actually lead to a border post but we got through in the end. When we got to cell range Josh phoned to inform us that they had two punctures and that we should wait in Barbeton to give them the tire pump. This left the option of lunch in Barbeton on a Sunday – an experience in itself. We landed up at the Cocopan for lunch, and then left Sue and Josh to spend an educational night in Barbeton.

We eventually made it home after dodging roads that had long pieces of tar missing and little pothole signs – potholes now consist of roads with 50 to 100 metres of tar missing on a national highway! After a racy unpack it was off to bed where Emma slept her first 8 hour stretch!!!!!!