Kosi Bay and Santa Maria trip in May

[cruiserhj60]

Hi Folks,
My wife and I are planning a trip in May. We will be staying in self cater chalets for most of the trip.
Decided to splash out and leave the tent behind.
I have a 2000 Hilux 2.7, Old Man EMU suspension, 31x10.5x15 AT tyres. Long rang tank (60L), Winch. The vehicle is in pretty decent condition.
We plan to spend 2 nights in Kosi Bay. The camp on the edge of the Kosi Bay reserve. (Amangwane Camp)
We then plan to cross the border and travel up to Santa Maria, and spend 3 nights there. (Nonguene Lodge)
From Santa Maria we plan to leave Mozambique via Komatipoort.
1 Night in Komati and them onto Long Tom Pass to stay in a bit of luxury at Misty Mountain.
Has anyone any advice for
1. The stay at Kosi and tripping to the mouth.
2. The trip up to Santa Maria. Do we go into the Elephant reserve via the South gate or the West gate.
How long should this trip take us. (I believe about 130km.)
Is there petrol on route.
What is the food situation in Santa Maria. Bread etc. Is there petrol in Santa Maria.
3. The trip from Santa Maria to Komati. Do we go via Boane straight to Komati, or via Maputo to Komati? Any suggestions and advice. (I believe about 250km)
Is there petrol on route. This could influence us as to whether we go via Maputo or not.
4. Anything you can think of.

I have looked at the trip to Santa Maria done by Mark. Any extra information would be appreciated.
Regards
Trevor

[OOOOMS]

Hi Folks,
My wife and I are planning a trip in May. We will be staying in self cater chalets for most of the trip.
Decided to splash out and leave the tent behind.
I have a 2000 Hilux 2.7, Old Man EMU suspension, 31x10.5x15 AT tyres. Long rang tank (60L), Winch. The vehicle is in pretty decent condition.
We plan to spend 2 nights in Kosi Bay. The camp on the edge of the Kosi Bay reserve. (Amangwane Camp)
We then plan to cross the border and travel up to Santa Maria, and spend 3 nights there. (Nonguene Lodge)
From Santa Maria we plan to leave Mozambique via Komatipoort.
1 Night in Komati and them onto Long Tom Pass to stay in a bit of luxury at Misty Mountain.
Has anyone any advice for
1. The stay at Kosi and tripping to the mouth.
2. The trip up to Santa Maria. Do we go into the Elephant reserve via the South gate or the West gate. The South gate is no longer operational
How long should this trip take us. (I believe about 130km.) From Ponta Border approx. 4/5 hours to Santa Maria.
Is there petrol on route. No
What is the food situation in Santa Maria. Bread etc. Is there petrol in Santa Maria. Shops or shall I say shop bottle store and there were pau's available. Some tin food but best if you take your own, no fuel in Santa Maria.
3. The trip from Santa Maria to Komati. Do we go via Boane straight to Komati, or via Maputo to Komati? Any suggestions and advice. (I believe about 250km). There is 'fuel' at Boane, but the road is very bad, doing into Maputo if you have not been there before is a challenge....! Rather avaoid, you may have to cross via ferry last time I checked!
Is there petrol on route. This could influence us as to whether we go via Maputo or not.
4. Anything you can think of.

I have looked at the trip to Santa Maria done by Mark. Any extra information would be appreciated.
Regards
Trevor

The road from Elephant reserve to Garcia Marcia is not the best, very corrugated and pot holes!

[Die$eL]

Hi Folks,
My wife and I are planning a trip in May. We will be staying in self cater chalets for most of the trip.
Decided to splash out and leave the tent behind.
I have a 2000 Hilux 2.7, Old Man EMU suspension, 31x10.5x15 AT tyres. Long rang tank (60L), Winch. The vehicle is in pretty decent condition.
We plan to spend 2 nights in Kosi Bay. The camp on the edge of the Kosi Bay reserve. (Amangwane Camp)
We then plan to cross the border and travel up to Santa Maria, and spend 3 nights there. (Nonguene Lodge)
From Santa Maria we plan to leave Mozambique via Komatipoort.
1 Night in Komati and them onto Long Tom Pass to stay in a bit of luxury at Misty Mountain.
Has anyone any advice for
1. The stay at Kosi and tripping to the mouth. You need to get the day pass on the day before you visit the mouth. I suggest you be at the parks board office about 20 minutes before they open as they only give a feew per day and they sell like hotcakes. Also check with the lodge where you are staying. The lodges sometimes have reserved passes which you can buy.
2. The trip up to Santa Maria. Do we go into the Elephant reserve via the South gate or the West gate.
How long should this trip take us. (I believe about 130km.)
Is there petrol on route. All around Kosi bay there is fuel. Cant comment about the route to Santa Maria though. There is a Spar and stuff in Kosi bay where you can get just about anything which you forgot to carry or need.
What is the food situation in Santa Maria. Bread etc. Is there petrol in Santa Maria.
3. The trip from Santa Maria to Komati. Do we go via Boane straight to Komati, or via Maputo to Komati? Any suggestions and advice. (I believe about 250km)
Is there petrol on route. This could influence us as to whether we go via Maputo or not.
4. Anything you can think of.

I have looked at the trip to Santa Maria done by Mark. Any extra information would be appreciated.
Regards
Trevor

Have a good trip!

[Frost]

Hi Trevor,

The parks board only allow up to I think 12 permits per day to enter the reserve which will get you to the mouth/lagoon area. So best to get there early.

You can get hold of Marthinus (Tienie) at Lala Lapha Lodge on:
035 592 8016
082 773 8247

S 26* 57,480
E 32* 46,044

He is a local and knows the area like the back of his hand and can assist with trips and arrangements.

Enjoy!

[cruiserhj60]

Hi Folks,
Thanks for the info so far.
It see it seems my main problem is the trip to Komati from Santa Maria.
It appears from what Mark has to say that it would be better to go up to Catembe and then catch the ferry.
Fortunately I will probably be able to get help with this from the people at Santa Maria.
Regarding Kosi, it seems I will have to try to get a permit ahead of time as we will only be arriving around midday, with only the next day available to visit the park.
Thanks again.
Regards Trevor

[Basjan14]

Hi Trevor

The mouth at Kosi bay is absolutely stunning! Braaing there, relaxing and enjoying the scenery for the day is something I would do again.

We traveled from ponta to catembe and over the ferry a year ago. The 90km odd drive took us 3h15. The ferry crossing was very easy and once your in Maputo it is like a whole different world compared to Ponta and Santa Maria. I would also suggest stocking up in kosi bay before you cross the border like Diesel mentioned. There are signs up in Maputo which will guide you to the border. A map is easy to get and you probably have a gps. The upmarket places in maputo are along the water edge, very nice and is reasonably safe. I love it there, so would also recommend checking it out if you haven't been? The Architecture is also something to admire.

I have driven from and through Swaziland en route to maputo and back a few times before. The road goes through Boane if I'm not mistaken. Haven't driven to Ponta from Boane before however it should be no challenge for your lux and with that long range fuel tank you shouldn't have trouble reaching a filling station in time.

Hope this helps. Looking forward to your trip report

See pictures of the road to catembe from ponta and the ferry crossing the harbour/river. I suggest having meticais ready for this. Can't recall the cost however I think it was less than 500 meticais per vehicle with 3 passengers.

Basjan

[cruiserhj60]

Hi Tjaart,
You have perhaps just answered my next set of questions about the ferry at Catembe.
Thanks for this.
We did consider going from Santa Maria into Swaziland at one stage, but decided to keep this for another trip.
I think we will probably use the route via Catembe and Maputo.
I will probably only make this decision once we are at Santa Maria.
I am sure the people there will give us a bit more information on the best routes.
I agree with you about Kosi mouth being stunning. I was last there about 12 years ago in a VW Syncro.
That is the main reason why I want to go back there.
Thanks again
Regards

[kfxnando]

sorry for the high jack

however, seeing that its almost the end of may, wonder if you have done the trip?

was wondering how is the road to Pongola, with the road works and things like that

we have started talking about a trip in that direction later in the year

all info would be helpful

.

[Bulletjie-3]

Hi Fernando
Between Ermelo and Pongola there are 2 sections they are working on, not bad. It was beter than detouring through Amsterdam to Pongola. My biggest problem on the whole route from Delmas to Pongola was fog.
Enjoy it.

[kfxnando]

thanx for feed back

[cruiserhj60]

Hi Folks,
Sorry I have not done a report yet. I have walked back into a pile of work.

This is why I hate going away.
As it is we had to cut out the Santa Maria portion of the trip. I needed to stay in telephone contact. (long story behind this)
Just briefly, we ended up doing the following.
The trip to Kosi via Pongola from Gauteng was fine.
We avoided the road works around Ermelo by going Via Amsterdam to Piet Retief. Adds about 20 km to the trip.
I incidently went to Piet Retief area on Saturday for work and the road works around Ermelo hardly delayed me.
The road works to Pongola are not that bad at the moment. 2 stop go controls, added about 20 minutes to our trip.
The rest of this road was in decent condition.
We stayed overnight at a real nice B&B in Pongola. The Rose Garden. just outside Pongola on the Richrds Bay side.I would recomend it.
Our stay at Kosi was at a place call Amangwane. Situated right at the the entrance to the Kosi Mouth reserve. It is a tented camp with reed ablutions attached. We had hot water and shared kitchen facilities.
I would say that I pretty much enjoyed it here, but would probably stay at the Utshwayelo Lodge next time. It is right next door. It just seemed a bit more organised.
Either of these 2 are the place to stay if you want easy access to the mouth.
This is where we were destined to go to Santa Maria. Sadly this will have to be for another time.
From Kosi we went via Swaziland to Komati. (back to Pongola and the Lavumisa border post). The border was a quickand easy transfer. The road through Swaziland was in very good condition.
We made a stopover for lunch at the Hlane Game park. This is a place that I could stay at for a day or two. No electricity, very clean and nicely set up.
We stayed at Komati River chalets for one night. Another place that I would recommend.
From here via the Kruger (2 nights), we went to Misty Mountain on Long Tom.
This was supposed to be the luxyry end of trip.
This was cut short as it turned out that my wife had picked up a tick bite somewhere along the line, and we had to go home.
Regards
Trevor