The coastline of South Africa is pretty amazing. Stretching more than 2,500 kilometres from the desert border with Namibia on the Atlantic coast southwards to the tip of Africa and then northeast to the border with Mozambique on the Indian Ocean.

When you talk to people they always say that they love the bush or they love the beach, but it is possible to love both? On the Sunway Safaris MOa14 Mozambique & Kruger Beach & Bush 14 day accommodated tour you get to experience both. During the first few days on tour you visit Hluhluwe area and do bush walks and game drives to see as much wildlife as possible. Hluhluwe is situated between iSimagaliso Wetland Park & Hluhluwe-iMfolozi Park on the elephant coast.

After the visit to the bush you will go to Kosi Bay which is a series of four interlinked lakes in South Africa. The lakes also form part of the iSimangaliso Wetland Park.  The Kosi Bay estuary is about 2 kilometres from the Mozambique border. The Kosi Bay River Mouth is known as “the aquarium” because of the clarity of the water and abundance of fish species. The local fisherman would use fish traps to trap fish moving in and out of the estuary with the tide. The Tsonga people who have been staying in this area for many years are experts in fish traps. This is mostly only the Tsonga men who construct and check the fish traps. They make them using twisted branches and bind them with thick lashings.

One of the other very special things to go see if you are ever in this area, November until mid March, is the nesting of the leatherback & loggerhead turtles this is the only time of the year that they leave the water. These two species of turtles start coming to the beach to lay their eggs around November and the hatchlings usually start showing themselves around February and make their way back to the ocean. Kosi Bay has the highest concentration of turtles nesting anywhere else along the African coastline. This might be because it is one of the quietest beaches in South Africa. There are minimal man made structures, no artificial lights or people on the beach. There is also very strict protection for the turtles at Kosi Bay. No vehicles are allowed on the beach and all tours are by foot.

It is surely worth the walk, and yes you have to be prepared to walk for a while – sometimes up to 12 kilometres – for a chance to hopefully spot one of these ancient reptiles.

The males never leave the water once they entered after hatching. When the females are ready to start nesting they will choose beaches with soft sand and a dark area. They use the contrast between the dark forest area and the brighter moonlit ocean for direction. Turtles nest at night when predation and heat is at the lowest. While the females are excavating their nests they are still very vulnerable. One female can lay around 9 clutches in one breeding season – with about 9 days passing between each event. An average clutch size is about 110 eggs. They might be buried underneath the sand but these eggs are still at risk of predators like honey badgers, mongooses, birds, dogs and humans who would dig them up. The eggs hatch in about 60-70 days and the hatchlings start walking to the sea, but first they have to dig themselves out. Again this would be during the night when the risk for predation is low.
Leatherback turtles are the largest living turtles. It is different from other sea turtles as they lack the bony shell (hence the name). Instead it is covered by skin and oily flesh. Their diet consists almost entirely of jellyfish, whose movements also predict the movements of the turtles. The Leatherback turtle would “prefer” deeper water during the day and more shallow water during the night as this is when the jellyfish rise up the water column.

Loggerhead turtles are the largest hard-shelled turtle. They are yellow – brown in colour and the shell is red – brown. These turtles are omnivorous; they have powerful jaws that they use to dismantle their prey. They are mostly active during the day and they can stay submerged for up to 4 hours.

This is definitely an amazing natural experience to witness, and definitely breath-taking to see these magnificent creatures on dry land. With both the Leatherback turtle and Loggerhead turtle on the endangered species list and the complicated breeding of turtles it is very important that we respect their privacy when going on these tours. As a matter of fact, we as humans do need to have respect all the time when we visit any game reserve or where animals are involved as technically we are “visitors in their homes for those few hours”