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Write a User ReviewEswatini’s Royal Flagship Park
Just sitting around the huge Ndlovu Camp waterhole in the evening is sure to provide sightings of a lot of wildlife, including jostling herds of elephants, giraffe and rhino. The lions are in a limited-access enclosure, which unfortunately detracts from the wilderness bush vibe (the quantity of prey skeletons makes it feel more like a velociraptor compound), but you are guaranteed close-up sightings and photo opportunities. Both black and white rhino roam wild (heavily protected, of course) through the park and are often encountered on walking safaris.
The guides are well trained
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and knowledgeable and, as a front-line force in combating rhino poaching, Hlane’s rangers have been selected from the local community and some are reformed ex-poachers themselves. Their traditional bush skills provided the ideal foundation for the SAS training they received during induction. As one Big Game Park’s guide points out, “There were probably times when the SAS boys were learning as much from some of our guys as we were from them.”
From King’s hunting ground to safe haven
This little park lacks true wilderness appeal: animals are kept in different drive-through areas and the road network is pretty limited. However, it is a great place to get up close to white rhinos. These large, primeval-looking beasts are so used to cars that nothing fazes them. This ensures you get to see behavior and interactions that are often more difficult to witness if animals are more wary. There are several very smooth rubbing posts around and we saw several rhinos using them to rid themselves of ticks and other parasites. We were lucky (or unlucky) enough to be in Hlane during the King’s annual visit to the park. This was obviously a big deal and while of cultural interest, it was quite disruptive.
Up close with rhinos
One of the most under-appreciated parks in southern Africa, Hlane Royal National Park is the place for rhino lovers. Not only are sightings practically guaranteed, you can also opt for a drive which allows you to exit the vehicle and walk within metres of these endangered giants. During our walk, we were only about five metres from a mother and calf, though that distance closed quickly when the young one took an interest in us. We slowly ambled back to the jeep, all the while followed by mom and her child. It was exhilarating and petrifying to be that close to a rhino, but the calm and experienced ranger made us all feel that we were not in (too much) danger. Hlane Royal National Park is also the only park with lions in Eswatini, though they are featured in a separate enclosure which takes the ‘safari feel’ away from the experience.
Eswatini’s biggest park
Without electricity to distract safari-goers from their Hlane bush experience, Ndlovu Rest Camp comes alive at night. Nesting barn owls screech in the wooden eaves of the restaurant, epauletted fruit bats squawk in the surrounding trees, and a crash of white rhino sidle up to the camp’s low fence where they contentedly bed down for the night. Just three strands of electric fence separate you from the heavy-breathing rhino, as you watch them snooze peacefully by the light of the moon. You’ll feel like you’ve died and gone to heaven.
An extensive network of game-viewing tracks criss-crosses the national park, allowing visitors to explore the area on guided open-top game drives
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or in their own vehicles. Early-morning game drives in search of lions in a surreal landscape of skeletal knob thorns can be followed by guided mid-morning mountain bike rides or bush walks to the hide at Mahlindza waterhole. Here you can munch on your packed brunch in the company of crocodiles, nyala, wildebeest, warthogs and woolly-necked storks. It is reassuring to know that these adventure activities are conducted in sectors of the park without lions.Hlane Royal National Park belongs in the elite of Eswatini’s wildlife parks. Along with wonderfully low-key wildlife-watching experiences, there’s plenty more to keep you occupied, including wildlife drives, bushwalking, mountain biking and local cultural tours.