Whilst I was working in South Africa in 2006 I took a holiday to Swaziland.

I travelled to Joburg and from there I got the Baz Bus through to Swaziland which had some stunning scenery on the way before we stopped off at Manzini, Swaziland's second largest town.

I stayed at Swaziland backpackers where I meet an American guy called Jamie. Jamie was cycling all over the world on a tandem bike and was doing his current route from Cape Town to Ethiopia.

Jamie was off to Willwane Nature reserve the next day so I joined him on the back of his bike at 6am and we headed for the nature reserve. We got there at around 7am after an hour of cycling and headed into the reserve which was beautiful at that time in the morning with clouds over the hills. We cycled past a number of animals such as zebras, impala, warthogs and other animals. Cycling in the reserve was quite an experience and quite different from seeing it from a car or truck of which you normally do it by. We cycled around the whole day viewing various animals before we left the reserve where Jamie dropped me off on the side of the road and I hitched a lift back to the backpackers.

Overall Swaziland seemed a nice country and I felt safe there compared to its neighbour South Africa. I only spent about 4 days in Swaziland but what I saw of it I liked.