Back in the day, I used to have my own favourite road tracks on a compilation tape I kept in my car. I would slip it in to the machine every time I set off on a long journey just to get me in the right mood for the long haul ahead of me.

The one that has always stuck in my mind is Canned Heat’s On the Road Again, probably because I like the whine of their voices and the songs slightly manic, repetitive, feel. The tape long ago wore out and the CD Player in my old Hyundai no longer works but its words were buzzing around in my brain when I drove, in high spirits, through the gates of Ndumo Game Reserve.

It seemed to catch the personality of the country I was driving through.

My destination was Kosi Bay, a place I knew very little about having never been there before. What I had heard, though, was enough to convince me it was somewhere worth seeking out.

Reaching the tar road that eventually leads to Ponto do Oura in Mozambique, we turned east, crossing the Pongolo and skirting Tembe Elephant Park with its tangled, labyrinth of trees. The last town we came to, before the turn-off to Kosi Bay, was Manguzi.

As we were running low on provisions we had decided to stop and stock up here.

I duly swung in to the local supermarket and was immediately up to my bumper in the biggest crush of people, animals, taxis and bakkies I had encountered on the entire trip (although Jozini came in a close second). Loud music blasted out from several makeshift stalls that had been set up along the side of the car park and an aroma of choking smoke and sizzling meat pervaded the air.

My immediate instinct was to panic, turn tail and bolt for the nearest exit but my birding colleague, Ken, who has a much more phlegmatic disposition than I do, was not to be denied his resupply of ice-cold Windhoek Lager. We stayed.

It was at this late stage of our journey that Ken, who, unlike me, had been to Kosi before, also chose to announce that he didn’t think my old Hyundai would cope with all the sand in the park. “You really need a 4X4…” he said, helpfully, before, smugly, climbing back in to his one.

I gave him the full force of my Evil-Eye for only telling me now, when it was much too late to turn back, but, as usual, it had absolutely no effect. The man is impervious to criticism, especially mine…

So on we went.

Shortly after Manguzi we turned off the main tar road and drove down a cow-dotted sand track with scatterings of trees and fields of stubby, overgrazed grass on either side. As I got to the top of the one rise, I finally spied the Indian Ocean, vivid and alluring in the shimmering heat haze, ahead of us.

Arriving at the entrance to Kosi, Ken informed the man at the barrier that we intended to leave my car parked outside for the duration of our stay. The guard looked horrified: “It will be stolen if you do that!!!”

I did a quick mental weighing-up of options in my head – stolen or stuck?

“I’ll risk the road!” I cried. And so, full of false confidence, I drove through the gate.

Kosi Bay Nature Reserve, which lies several kilometres south of the Mozambique border, consists of four lakes and a series of interconnecting channels which drain via the sandy estuary in to the Indian Ocean. Our camp site was in a patch of dense coastal forest full of raffia palms whose feathery branches met overhead like the tracery in a medieval cathedral. In front of us stretched KeHlange, the largest of the freshwater lakes.

The estuary, which is most famous for its for its Tsonga fish traps, is an area of peerless beauty but not without its hidden dangers. Its waters conceal, among other things, the deadly – and incredibly ugly – stonefish. The currents can also be very strong which is why we prudently decided it would be safer to pay one of the locals to paddle us to the other side.

We spent most of our first day here. While Ken, who had also forgotten to remind me to bring my flippers, mask and snorkel (not that I have any), splashed and snorted and blew big galoops of water up in to the air like a learner baby whale showing off, I sat on top of a high dune and watched the sea birds through my binoculars, wishing I hadn’t left my bottle of cold water in the car.

Obeying the same irresistible urge to look for new and wilder places that had brought us here in the first place, Ken and I set off the next day to try and reach Black Rock, an isolated but beautiful stretch of beach on the north Zululand coast. We had barely driven out the park gate when we got our first good sighting of the day – a Eurasian Hobby sitting in a small Water Berry tree (Syzygium cordatum).

Like the road down to the estuary, the one to Black Rock is strictly 4X4. First, though, we headed back to the tar before turning left and following a complicated network of minor and diminishing tracks, through every thickening sand in what the guide, we had hired, assured us was the right direction.

As we drove the sun bore down like a jack-hammer. We saw no other vehicles and the few settlements we passed seemed mostly deserted.

Then abruptly we entered an area of lush coastal bush and found ourselves breaking through onto a beach of dazzling white.

While Ken had been wrestling his way down the treacherous road I had deconstructed and reconstructed the surrounding scenery in my mind. Mentally, I removed all the asphalt, electricity poles, brick buildings and other vestiges of our grubby civilization and tried to imagine what it must have looked like when this was still unexplored country.

Looking at the beautiful beach in front of me, I now got a much clearer image. Like something out of the pages of an old-fashioned adventure yarn, it had the romance of distant continents, faraway islands and lost lands.

We were not the only ones on that little slice of paradise, however. There were three young men snorkelling in the clear, crystalline waters in front of us.

They had obviously come here, for the day, not only to swim but to conduct some sort of scientific research because, when they finally emerged out the water the one, who I took to be their team leader, ambled over and asked us if we would like to see a Bouton’s Snake-eyed Skink? Not wanting to reveal my ignorance on matters Skink or admit that I had never heard of this one I nodded my head enthusiastically in assent.

There were quite a few of these dark-coloured, unprepossessing little lizard-things darting backwards and forwards over the jagged dark rocks that give this stretch of coastline its name. What makes them interesting, the man told us, is that they are a Malayan species whose ancestors must have floated over the ocean on a pile of driftwood or some such, adapted to their new environment and successfully started breeding here. Darwin in action.

Taking the same torturous route that had got us to the beach, only in reverse, we later headed back to camp.

We arrived in time to witness a dramatic change in the weather. A sharp new wind had risen that brought sudden whirls of spray spiralling like furious little water-sprites across the lake. A solitary Caspian Tern was fluttering hard against these winds before it decided to give up and headed off to find a more protected spot.

Everything, including the sun, was pulling out. It made me feel quite melancholy especially as I realised I, too, would be leaving the next day.

For a while I sat on the bench at the end of the pier and watched the waves grow more boisterous. Splish and splosh turned to slap and then headbutt. Under the leaden sky the water became a strange mineral-green.

That night the trees and palms heaved above our tents with an end-of-the world fury. Snuggled up inside my sleeping bag, I could easily imagine how similar winds must have once hammered old sailing ships and driven them on to the rocks.

There were sudden jolts of lightning and explosions of thunder. I thought we were in for a thorough drenching but, as it turned out, there was surprisingly little rain.

When I awoke it was all stillness. I did a quick reconnoitre but could find little sign of damage while the denizens of the forest seemed completely unfazed by the previous nights theatrics. The Red Bush Squirrel – this is one of the few places in South Africa where it occurs – that had befriended us came down, as it had the previous day, to hunt for rusk crumbs while we were drinking our coffee. A Livingstone’s Turaco, its crest sticking up like an antennae, landed in the dense foliage above us.

And then it was time to leave. Having slung all my gear in to the boot of the Hyundai I contemplated my prospects of successfully negotiating the thick sand.

I was lucky that morning. My biggest worry had been surmounting the steep section of road that takes you over the main dune. With a sceptical Ken looking on, I revved the car’s engine and hit the slope at full tilt. The next thing I knew I was up and over. As I crested the summit I turned around and gave Ken a big thumbs-up and a triumphant grin.

It was my turn to feel smug and very pleased with myself. My little Hyundai had done me proud.

I was on the road again…