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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Sal" data-source="post: 1533223" data-attributes="member: 639">I can confirm that -  at Lake Panic is a bird hide, which is the only place from which you can see the lake and I have seen great birds from there, also hippo, crocodile, and a lot of smaller things such as water monitors, dragonflies etc.If you are camping in Berg-en-Dal, Pretoriuskop or Lower Sabie, you can drive up to the Skukuza area in  two or three hours or so (depending upon what is on the road) and spend time in the bird hide.If you are camping you will not be staying at Mantuma camp in Mkuze, but it is worth walking around there early in the morning or in the evening before you go back to camp to see birds.Ndumo is very far north, being right on the border between Mozambique and KZN. If you decide to go up there from Sani, it would probably be good to stay a night en route somewhere.  It is another of the top birding spots but does not have a lot of other game. There are hippo and crocs, antelope, Nyala, duiker, bushbuck, impala, zebra and some less-easily seen animals. I'm not too sure about the rhino situation. They used to have a lot, when I went there we bumped into them everywhere, but they had a poaching problem and a lot of them were being relocated, so I'm not too sure what is left. Please see <a href="http://www.birdforum.net/showthread.php?t=104790&page=25" target="_blank">here</a> and the page that follows it for information about Ndumo I posted for Cossypha. (from post 741)As far as I can see, you have, basically, from 10th to 28th actually available if you arrive on 9th and leave on 29th? 18 days. of these, the first eight will be spent in the Cape and at Kimberley, the next two at Sani, and the last four or five in Kruger. This only leaves you four or five days for Zululand. IMO, Ndumo is a bit far and you would have to exclude Mkuze or whichever other places you had thought of visiting. Also remember it will take you an entire day to travel from Zululand to Kruger. The shortest route might be through Swaziland, but the 100kph is very strictly applied here and the roads are fairly narrow. The other way is to go via Piet Retief Amsterdam, Baadplaas,  Barberton and Nelspruit, then aim for Malelane gate. if you book in  for that night at least in Berg-en-Dal, it is only about 12 km up the road from the gate.</blockquote>

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