how accessible is the Johannesburg Zoo from OR Tambo and is it worth it to try and squeeze the Zoo into a six-to-eight hour layover before my flight on to Durban? I regret not making more of an effort to make it there when I lived in Pretoria for three months in 2017.
OR Tambo lies to the east/northeast of the city, while the zoo is just to the north of the city center. Depending on the time you get in and traffic, it will likely take you at a minimum of 30 minutes each way and more than likely 45 minutes or so. I would say a visit to the zoo is definitely doable in that time frame, but you might feel a little crunched on time, especially if your layover is closer to the 6 hour mark instead of 8. Johannesburg is a large zoo to cover on foot, but they did have golf carts for rent that can speed things up a bit. If they are anything like the ones at Pretoria though, they do not qualify as fast...
I don't have my portable hard drive on me so I can't give a for sure estimate based on my photo time stamps of how long we spent there, but it was somewhere around 5.5-6 hours. We arrived right around opening time at 8:30 am and left around 2pm and then spent a few hours at Bothongo after. Overall, the zoo was pretty much empty except for a few other tourists.
While most of my time in KZN will be spent exploring the unique environments in this province, I am tempted by the prospects of uShaka Marine World in Durban, which has practically zero representation thus far on the forum. Has anyone visited this facility recently? Is it worth dedicating a day of my itinerary to explore? I imagine I would squeeze it in the day of or the day before my flight back to Cape Town.
I toured 6 zoological facilities in KwaZulu-Natal (KZN) while I was there. Here is a quick run down of those facilities:
1)
Zululand Cat Conservation Project at Emdoneni Lodge - This place can only be toured via pre-booked tour, but other than uShaka, is the only place I'd maybe recommend you make time for. The work they're doing is quite unique and you actually get to go into the habitats with the cheetahs, servals, and African wild cats. With the cheetahs you should have a photo opportunity and chance to get fairly close to them, but won't have direct contact with them. Due to their elusiveness in the wild, its a good opportunity to see an African wild cat although the one we saw isn't genetically pure (they said it was 90%+ I believe), due to the difficulty of finding cats without domestic genes. Tour lasts around an hour.
2)
Zulu Croc - Typical crocodile center with a small reptile house as well. Nothing all that interesting here, but nothing bad. Will take closer to a half hour than full hour. Good restaurant.
3)
Crocodile Centre St. Lucia - A bit more extensive than Zulu Croc, but also overall not anything special. Biggest reason to visit this place is that it is just past one of the main entrances and in iSimangaliso. The most interesting thing about this place is the stories they have on signs of their animals and wild individuals climbing over the fences in and out of the enclosures, including one involving a dwarf crocodile that came from the Bronx Zoo. Its quite shocking reading the stories and then noting how tiny and easy to climb those fences still are. I guess be on guard if you go here? A few outdated, concrete pits, but overall exhibits are adequate to more than adequate. May take closer to an hour.
4)
Umgeni River Bird Park - This place was overall disappointing to me. Largely amounts to what seems to be a parrot/macaw sanctuary, with a few other species of birds around. Under an hour at this place.
5)
Mitchel Park Zoo - The flower beds/gardens outside the zoo are quite beautiful, but the zoo isn't anything special. If you haven't seen a Cape Blue Duiker before, you're guaranteed to see one here. They also have Cape Ground Squirrel's which are quite unique in captivity, although you've likely seen them in the wild, and some type of rodent that is unusual, but I can't remember what without my photos. Perhaps a degu species? This is where I saw a wild rock hyrax, but it may have honestly been an escaped individual as there was another individual that was stuck and had died in the double fencing of their enclosure, which was quite concerning to see it just sitting there rotting. An hour or less is all you will need here again.
6)
uShaka Marine World - I would absolutely recommend a visit to uShaka and depending on your views towards theming, this aquarium may actually be better than Two Oceans in Cape Town and those two aquariums are definitely the best and most consistent high quality zoological establishments in South Africa. You won't need a full day to tour it, unless you are planning to do the other things the park has to offer (ie shopping, rides/water park, etc.) and 3-3.5 hours here was enough to thoroughly see everything. I was able to do the zoo, bird park and uShaka all in one day. This entire place is themed on a shipwreck and is quite well done. The fact that the larger exhibits are all "outdoors" make the shipwreck effect really feel more legit. It's quite extensive. There is also a reptile zoo that is in the shopping area of the theme park that is a separate ticket. Another well done themed area with a few unique species.
Other notes on KZN and the things we did:
- We went to South Africa because my wife won an online charity auction and surprised me with a week long safari package at the
Zulu Nyala Heritage Lodge. Personally, I would not really recommend staying there especially as someone that has been on a safari before as their reserve is quite small and we felt we thoroughly had seen it within 3 of the two hour long safari drives that are a part of their standard package each day. Additionally, there were really no predators on the reserve at the time we went, other than 3 Nile crocodiles and the occasional leopard that hoped the fence so it doesn't feel truly wild and is more like a safari park experience here in the US. That being said, they did have a cheetah in a boma they were preparing to release onto the reserve, so I'm not sure what the dynamics are like there now as they were looking to acquire a few more cheetahs, but their reserve is too small to really accommodate much else. The elephant herd is also quite small with just 3 females. Unlike the large parks where guides would cruise past antelope, giraffes, etc, in many cases saying "We'll see those better later" here it really felt we stopped for EVERYTHING..... no matter the number of times we saw nyala, impala, or warthog.
Benefits to Zulu Nyala, is that it is cheap compared to many other safari packages in the region and fairly centralized so you can hit up the larger "national" parks in the area pretty easily, so it can serve as a good home base if you have a car. Additionally, it is one of the only places in South Africa where their rhinos are still horned as the reserve is small and it is adequately protected with security. Seeing black rhinos is also pretty much a given here. If you do not have a car, they do offer tours/excursions to almost all of the places I mention below.
- While in the region/Durban, I would absolutely recommend a day to do a tour up the
Sani Pass into
Lesotho. The views are incredible and it of course allows you to get your passport stamped in Lesotho. We saw a few antelope species, but this drive is absolutely about the views/experience. If you are going to drive it yourself, you will need a 4x4, but there are plenty of tour companies offering trips that will pick you up in Durban. We booked through Trip Advisor and drove out to their office from Durban instead of paying to be picked up in Durban. The drive is pretty easy, but be vigilant of the pot holes as my wife did blow a tire on the way back. They are easy enough to avoid if you give yourself distance from the car in front of you and are looking out for them, things my wife did not take my advice on very well in my opinion before I fell asleep. (It's actually a quite funny story to us now as she did hit a few pot holes before I fell asleep, but then blew the tire on the last possible pot hole she could hit.)
- I'm assuming you'll be spending most of your time in KZN up to the north of Durban in
Hluhluwe/St. Lucia area near Eswatini, which is where Zulu Nyala is and where we also spent most our time. This is truly a great place for safaris that I feel is really overlooked and not talked about in comparison to Kruger or the other areas of the country that are more easily accessed from Cape Town or Johannesburg. It is definitely a birder's paradise. Our days here were spent:
Day 1: We drove from Mbombela up by Kruger through
Eswatini into KZN. If you are looking to add another country to your lifetime list, getting in and out of Eswatini is quite easy and really doesn't take much time, but if you are driving a rental car you will need a letter from the company saying you can take the car there. We didn't know about this until the night before and we were able to do everything over phone/email to get one late at night. I don't think they even checked it when we entered in the end. Unfortunately, I don't think there is really much to do on the south side of the country near KZN. We spent most our day (when not driving) in the capital
Mbabane, which is on the other side of this small country. We had a nice breakfast there and then spent sometime shopping in the local markets and at a cultural village (
Mantenga). While the capital really isn't that far from KZN, it likely isn't worth a day unless you are just looking to add another country. It is quite beautiful up by the capital though, while the southern half becomes more flat and boring. Once you're out of Eswatini and driving into KZN we started seeing animals immediately as the road goes through the Pongola Game Reserve, which I believe is one of the larger reserves, and one that is unfenced and open with Phinda (if I recall correctly).
Day 2: We mostly lounged around the resort. Our trip was very go, go, go as we moved from city to city every few days and this was our one time to do any real relaxing as we were also working on the trip at nights.
Day 3: Zululand Cat Project, Zulu Croc, St. Lucia Crocodile Centre and walked around/shopped in St. Lucia. St. Lucia is really lauded as what we would think as a beach town/cabin town here in the states, but was a bit disappointing in that regard. I covered the other places above.
Day 4: Tembe Elephant Park. Lauded as the last strong hold of the tuskers, this day was rather elephant and large mammal sparse, but we saw lots of smaller mammals and other creatures here. There were a few elephant bulls and some with the start of impressive tusks, but no true tuskers showed themselves to us. Many go here because suni are quite reliable, although we didn't go to that part of the park. It is also one of the few places the Samango Monkey can be seen. I went here mostly because there are wild dogs in the park, but was disappointedly told when I asked the guide about them that they basically fled to the northern reaches of the park immediately upon release and their is no chance of seeing them (the parts open to safari are in the southern half of the park). Oh well. I still had fun, but the rest of my group was a bit disappointed with this trip. This park is only traversable by 4x4 due to the sand forest terrain.
Day 5: We spent the day in the
uMkhuze Game Reserve part of iSimangaliso, again in search of wild dogs, but guides in the area are a bit uncertain if they are in fact there. There was a pack released into the park in October of 2023, but again they seem to be rarely seen and may be in another part of the park now. It was a good day and this part of the park can easily be driven/seen thoroughly in one day. Great park for birding. Large groups of hippos in the lake, but definitely more of a typical gam reserve than the rest of iSimangaliso. If I had a do over, I probably would have chosen to spend my day in the main parts of iSimangaliso near Saint Lucia instead.
Day 6: Hluhluwe-Imfolozi Park. The Kruger of KZN and the park that pretty much saved the southern white rhino. This park definitely deserves 2-3 days, but we unfortunately only had time for one. The setting is absolutely stunning and it has all those big predators you want, although we struck out on those. Got great shots of some massive bull elephants, buffalo, giraffes, and a large herd of elephants with young ones. In addition to a lot of other things. Unfortunately, struck out on the wild dogs once again, along with cheetah and hyenas, which I didn't see on the trip at all as well.
- My recommendation would be to stay in Hluhluwe-Imfolozi itself or one of the larger reserves such as Phinda.
- Most tourists obviously don't drive themselves around South Africa like we did, (and most guides/South Africans couldn't believe we were) but honestly it was great having our own car. We drove a lot of the reserves ourselves in a small 2-wheel drive car and had no problems (other than the blown tire, which happened on paved road). The horror stories you see online about it are bit scary to read, but we had no issues at all, just don't be stupid and stay vigilant. The national highways are well maintained for the most part, while the side roads/country highways are a bit more hit and miss, but are still paved, there just might by some giant potholes. We were stopped a few times for license checks, but those did not take long. Last word of note is to stay on the look out for speed bumps. Many are unmarked and hard to see. In terms of other drivers on the road, it is pretty standard driving, but I say that as someone that regularly drives in NYC, nothing like Asia/Southeast Asia where I would never drive myself. No one is going to wait/let you in though, so sometimes you just have to go.
- The other more unusual thing we did as international tourists was stay in AirBnB's instead of hotels or at the resorts for the most part (obviously not for the majority of our time in KZN, but in Durban we did). The hosts were a bit annoying at times to deal with as they were all trying to be almost too helpful, but we found out this had to do with us being international tourists as their guests are normally fellow South Africans, while international tourists stay a the big hotels/resorts. In multiple cases, we were the first international tourists our hosts had. If you would like to know where we rented, let me know. In Durban we were right on the ocean near the port and could watch the ships come in and out from the porch, and also within a pretty easy walk of uShaka. Many of our other stays had similarly outstanding views.
), which brings me to my first question: how accessible is the Johannesburg Zoo from OR Tambo and is it worth it to try and squeeze the Zoo into a six-to-eight hour layover before my flight on to Durban? I regret not making more of an effort to make it there when I lived in Pretoria for three months in 2017.
