Stephen Murray and his wife Teresa picked us and all our baggage up about 11am for the five hour trip to eSwatini. We visited the bakery next to the TWR Africa Service Center to purchase savory pastries to eat during the trip. We stopped at Alzu rest stop, which is about midway, for some drinks. The view from the restroom windows looks out over a small game farm with rhinos, Cape buffalo, eland and other small game.

Next stop was at the border were we had to check out through the South Africa border post, then in through the Eswatini border post. That process was quick until we got to the eSwatini border gate where we were informed we needed to pay a car tax, because the car had South Africa license plates. Neither Stephen or Larry had thought of that, so back to the border post to take care of that. Back again at the border gate, we were again informed that we would have to pay tax on the case containing a transmitter part, so back to the border post again to get in line for customs.

Fortunately, there were only two truck drivers in front of us at customs, so about half an hour later (it was now past sundown) we proceeded through the border gate for the 45 minute trip to our final stop at the TWR houses on Singing Pines Farm just past Manzini. The house we are staying in is named “Kiegala Pinnata.” We know it as the Kimber house, because the Kimber family lived in it during our previous three trips. We have also stayed in it on at least one of our trips.

NOTE—in case you missed it, Eswatini was spelled two ways in this blog entry. Doing some research, we could find no ‘official’ right way for it to be spelled. When the King announced the name change in 2018, it appears he used “eSwatini”, yet in most places we see Eswatini being used. The country’s currency still has “Central Bank of Swaziland” on it.