We spent the better part of today exploring the Blyde River Canyon Nature Reserve around Swadini, and came across this beautifully reflective pool along one of the walking trails.
Tomorrow we’re heading back home to Pretoria after nine days exploring the north-east corner of South Africa. We plan to publish several posts about the places we visited in the coming weeks and hope we’ll see you around de Wets Wild again soon!
We spent another day on the Kruger National Park today, entering for a day visit through the Orpen Gate.
Only a few kilometers into the Park, we met with the King and Queen of the Beasts on their honeymoon…
“Threes” is the theme for this week’s WordPress Photo Challenge
We visited the Moholoholo Wildlife Rehabilitation Centre today, very near the Swadini resort where we are staying. They offer a guided tour of their facilities, enabling close-up encounters with a variety of raptors, predators and other wildlife.
Visit their website to learn about the wonderful work they do to assist orphaned, injured and poisoned wildlife, and, if you are ever in the vicinity, we can highly recommend the experience.
Today we moved westwards, out of the Kruger National Park and into the Blyde River Canyon Nature Reserve in the Drakensberg mountain range, on the border of the Limpopo and Mpumalanga Provinces. While exploring this scenic area we’ll be basing ourselves at the Forever Swadini Resort, located at the foot of a spectacular rock face.
From Pafuri, we travelled southwards towards the central section of the Kruger National Park, spending two nights at peaceful Letaba Rest Camp and exploring the mopane country between the Letaba and Olifants Rivers.
We had some great sightings – including wild dogs! – and will share some more photos from our visit to Letaba in an upcoming installment of de Wets Wild.
We spent our Valentine’s Weekend at the rustic but very romantic Pafuri Rivercamp, in the extreme north-east of South Africa’s Limpopo Province.
We’ll share more about our travels in the Pafuri region of the Kruger National Park soon, but for a teaser have a look at our entry into the “Treasure” photo challenge.
We’ve just spent three days exploring the beautiful Pafuri region of the Kruger National Park. Unspoiled and remote, Pafuri is true wilderness.
Heaven!
We post these pictures in response to WordPress’ weekly photo challenge theme “Treasure” and will soon publish more from our trip, showcasing all that Pafuri has to offer.
We are heading into the wilds of far northern South Africa for a few days and, just in case our network coverage is not good enough to post a daily picture of the places we’re exploring, we’re leaving you with a special Valentine’s Day photograph until we’re back in range 😉
It’s hard to imagine a more prehistoric looking large mammal alive in the world today than the white rhinoceros. Being one of our favourite species, we cherish every sighting we have of them while exploring the wild places of South Africa.
It is thought that the white rhino got its name from its wide mouth – a miss-translation of the Dutch word “wijd” which means wide. Scientifically, the name “Square-lipped Rhinoceros’ is probably more correct, but not widely used. The white rhino uses its broad mouth to good effect, grazing as it does almost exclusively on short grasses, in contrast to its smaller African cousin, the black rhinoceros, which is a browsing species. After the elephants, the white rhinoceros is the biggest living land animal. They can stand over 1.8m (6 feet) high at the shoulder and bulls weigh up to 2,400 kg. Cows are lighter at up to 1,800 kg, while calves weigh between 40 and 60 kg at birth.
White rhinos prefer open, lightly wooded habitats with a good covering of short, sweet grasses and easy access to drinking water (they drink about 72 liters of water a day). They are by far the most social of the rhinoceroses, at times congregating in groups of up to 18, though normally much fewer. Adult bulls are territorial, and groups of cows and their calves range over the territories of several bulls.
Cows give birth to a single calf every 3 to 5 years. The calves are vulnerable to attack from lions and spotted hyenas, but healthy adults have little to fear from any natural predators. Most adults succumb to a natural death from injuries sustained in fights, freak accidents like getting stuck in mud, drowning or getting caught in bush fires, and during prolonged droughts. Sickeningly, poaching for their horns has recently become probably the biggest single cause of death for adult white rhinos, which would normally have a life expectancy of up to 45 years in the wild.
Today, the Southern White Rhinoceros is considered “near threatened“. At the start of the 1900’s, only between 20 and 50 animals remained, all of them in the Umfolozi Game Reserve (today part of Hluhluwe-Imfolozi Park). One of South Africa’s greatest conservation success stories is how the Natal Parks Board (today Ezemvelo KZN Wildlife) and dedicated conservationists like Dr. Ian Player pulled these majestic animals from the jaws of extinction: by 2010 their wild population stood at an estimated 20,170 of which 18,800 were being protected in South Africa. Now, ever escalating pressure from poaching is threatening to undo their fantastic work. Sadly, the fortunes of the Northern White Rhinoceros, which historically occurred in the Sudan, the DRC and Uganda, is even more dire, with only four individuals remaining in the wild, having been relocated from a zoo in the Czech Republic to a conservancy in Kenya.
We (the Wild de Wets), posing for a portrait, at Glen Reenen Rest Camp in the Golden Gate Highlands National Park
“Selfie” is the theme for this week’s WordPress Photo Challenge
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