Expert Reviews of Hlane Royal National Park (5 Reviews)

Covering around 220-sq-km and the largest park in Eswatini (formerly Swaziland), Hlane features grassland, shallow pans and tracts of hardwood trees. The name means ‘wilderness’ and the ‘Royal’ part is derived from the fact that it’s held in trust by King Mswati III.

I found it a very easy park to visit on a self-drive trip – Eswatini is a small country and distances aren’t great – and it’s also on plenty of safari itineraries as the best park for large mammals; especially elephant, white rhino, hippo, giraffe and other plains game. There’s also a population of lion kept in a large enclosure that can only be visited on official guided drives. Birders will love Hlane – it has one of the highest densities of nesting white-backed vultures in southern Africa, while raptors include martial, bateleur and long-crested eagles. I was very surprised to see marabou storks – a curious looking and huge bird I’ve only seen in East Africa before.

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park is not especially wild, and unfortunately is bisected by the MR3 Highway, but I enjoyed the reasonably priced guided game drive organised at Ndlovu Camp immediately inside the main gate and saw plenty of game in just two hours. Guided walking safaris are another option too.