Road map to Kosi Bay Manguzi
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Adjoining the Mozambique border, Tembe is home to the province’s biggest African elephant herd and its only indigenous elephants. Tembe’s African elephants used to be South Africa’s last remaining free-ranging herd, at one time moving seasonally between Mozambique and Maputaland.
In recent years they have sought refuge in the dense sand forests of Tembe to escape the depredations of border conflicts and landmines, and their continuous harassment by ivory poachers. The magnificent African elephants, more than 140 in number – from massive full-grown adults to juveniles – are Tembe’s main attraction and make for spectacular viewing. The larger adults are physically the biggest in South Africa and signs of their presence are everywhere, clearly evident through the broken branches and foliage left behind from their voracious foraging. Tembe’s mosaic of sand forest, woodland, grassland, and swampland, comprises an ideal habitat for highly-visible elephant spotting, enabling them to be observed at close-quarters from game-drive vehicles or from the discreetly-located hides which overlook their watering holes. At 300 square kilometres in extent (190 square miles),Tembe is the third largest game reserve in KwaZulu-Natal, home not only to the unique African elephant population but to a profusion of wildlife – including the Big Five. Black and white rhino (more than 65 in total), buffalo, leopard, hippo, serval, eland, zebra, giraffe, hyena, jackal, wildebeest, nyala, kudu, water buck, reed buck, red duiker, warthog, and other small mammals thrive in abundance. Tembe is also home to the rare and elusive suni antelope, one of the smallest and shyest species of buck in southern Africa, and the patient game-viewer is often rewarded with a sighting. Tembe is a bird-watching paradise, with more than 340 species recorded in the park – including the rare Rudd’s apalis, the rufous-bellied night heron, the Natal nightjar and the Woodward’s batis. These fish kraals are found in the Kosi Estuary not far from the mouth. They have been in existence for hundreds of years and are a source of sustenance for the Tembe Tribal people of the area.
Evidence of Fish Kraals have been found in other areas to the north of Kosi and as far south as Port St Johns. This method of trapping however only continues to be practised in the Kosi estuary. According to Alan Mountain, the principle employed in trapping the fish is very simple. In the estuary and shallow waters of the lakes, guide fences(umtamana or umteyula) are constructed at right angles to the flow of the water and to the shore- line. This fence is cresent or hook-shaped, with the concave side facing upstream. Its purpose is to prevent fish passing through to the sea and instead to guide them to a heart shaped enclosure – where fish are trapped either in a basket(umono or in a valve like structureijele where they can be speared. These fish kraals are carefully regulated by the Tribal Authority for the area. This authority gives each family in the area the right to establish and maintain a particular fish kraal site. The Kosi hike is a slackpacker hike, we carry you luggage and cater for you. You walk only 3-4 hours in the morning and do optional activities in the afternoon. The hike is completely flexible if booked in advance. The number of hiking days can be changed and extra non hiking days can be added to see all of the best that Kosi has to offer. If you add extra days you can also go on an ocean safari to snorkel in open sea reefs, look for dolphins, or go to Tembe Elephant Park for a game drive. Please visit these sites for more info: http://hiking.kositourism.co.za http://kositrail.wordpress.com/ for more info on Kosi visit http://www.kositourism.co.za/blog The only questions that remain are When are you coming? How many guests? Do you want the standard tour or a shortened hike with an added (game drive or ocean safari? Willie Discovered this funky colourful insect on our doorstep yesterday. New one to me? Anyone knows what it is.
African Wildlife, Volume 36, No 4/5, 1982. In George Begg’s article on the Kosi system, mention is made of the five species of mangrove which occur there, two of which (Ceriops tagal, the Indian mangrove, and Lumnitzera racemosa, the Tonga mangrove) are at the southernmost limit of their distribution at Kosi. The three other species are the red mangrove (Rhizophora mucronata), the black mangrove (Bruguiera gymnorrhiza) and the white mangrove (Avicennia marina). Keith Cooper, now The Wildlife Society’s Director of Conservation, surveyed South Africa’s mangroves for a report published in 1968 (reference below) and estimated that there were 32 ha of mangrove community at Kosi. This may not seem to be much, but mangroves in fact play a very important role in the ecological health of the systems of which they are a part. Firstly, they are important spawning and nursery areas for many species of marine fish (and marine invertebrates). Secondly, they provide organic material in the form of leaves and detritus, which forms the food base for the complex society of estuarine life. (The rotting leaves are coated with bacteria, which makes them an attractive, protein-rich food source for invertebrate animals from nematode worms to shellfish, which in turn provide a delectable menu for juvenile fish.) Thirdly, they play a vital role in stabilising estuarine sediments and preventing the undercutting of riverbanks by flood waters and wave action. Fourthly, they have direct uses to local people – for example at Kosi the mangroves provide materials for the construction of fish traps. “In the mangrove swamp, the habitats of land and sea overlap,” says the World Wildlife Fund’s Yearbook for 1982. (That peculiar fish, the African mudskipper, Periophthalmus cantonensis, which inhabits the mangroves, lives almost entirely out of water, providing a clue perhaps to the way aquatic creatures first left the water for the land.) The Iternational Union for the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN) has drawn up a report on the status of the world’s mangroves and has urged every country with a mangrove resource to develop a “National Mangrove Plan” to safeguard mangroves and to provide for their rational utilisation if necessary. So far we aren’t doing too well in South Africa. Mangrove swamps exist in only about a dozen estuaries and Bruguiera gymnorrhiza, and several of these have been severely damaged by man’s activities (for example the Bruguiera gymnorrhiza stand at Sodwana, and the mangroves at Richards Bay, Durban and Isipongo). Mangroves can be severely affected by alteration of the water level. At Sodwana the building of a small bridge raised upstream water levels by 80 cm, which had the effect of drowning the younger mangroves by preventing their pneumatophores (aerial breathing roots) from obtaining air. At Kosi Bay in 1965 the natural closing of the estuary mouth for five months resulted in flooding of the mangrove swamp (aided by Cyclone Claude) and caused a mass mortality of the mangroves from which they are at present slowly recovering. Development at Kosi Bay will almost certainly harm the mangroves there. And if so, the whole estuarine ecosystem will be the poorer. References: Anon. 1982. Why save mangroves? The World Wildlife Fund Yearbook 1982: 84-95. Cooper, K.H. 1968. A report on mangroves in South Africa. Unpublished report. The Natal Branch of The Wildlife Society of Southern Africa, Durban. Moll, E.J., Ward, C.J., Steinke, T.D. & Cooper, K.H. 1971. Our mangroves threatened. Afr Wildlife 25 (3): 103-107. One of two small chalets
The bigger chalet with its all round windows where the birds wake you up with song.
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