KwaZulu Natal: Press
You want your own adventure to boast about, but you’re a chicken? Let’s assume you’re happy not to tell the whole truth. You wouldn’t actually be lying, but you wouldn’t be giving the whole picture...
What you say in the pub: “All right, Josh, thanks for asking. Went rhino-hunting on the plains of Maputaland, as it happens, tracked down one of the buggers, shot him and went back to camp for dinner. Pint of Old Speckled Hen and some pork scratchings, if you’re going.”
What really happens: as far as the shooting is concerned, “you” technically means not you but “an expert rhino conservationist”. And he’s firing a dart rather than a bullet. You’re just there to help.
This is your chance to take part in Phinda Game Reserve’s exhilarating rhino-darting programme: once sedated, their ears are marked and microchips are planted in their horns to help monitor them in the battle against poachers. The whole procedure should take just a few minutes, which is lucky because the rhino’s only in the land of nod for “approximately” 20 minutes.
Once that’s done, all you have to do is run for cover, cover being a beautiful forest lodge hidden among torchwood trees on the edge of the Greater St Lucia wetlands, with its game- viewing decks, shaded swimming pool and 16 raised chalets.
Four nights at Forest Lodge with Rainbow Tours (020 7226 1004, www.rainbowtours.co.uk) costs £1,845pp, including rhino- darting; flights from Heathrow to Durban are with British Airways (via Johannesburg). Regional add-ons are from £60.
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