In South Africa, we celebrate the 24th of September as “Heritage Day”, and of course to us de Wets our country’s natural heritage is our biggest pride. What better way then to spend the Heritage Day long weekend than at a place as beautiful as Marakele National Park, accompanied by a group of wonderful friends?
Marakele’s varied landscapes makes for such a diverse experience – from the top of the Waterberg massif to the plains of Kwaggasvlakte below. A few fires passed through the area some days before our visit (a quite natural occurrence in African savannas, to which animal and plant life alike are perfectly adapted) and as soon as the first rains of spring fall Marakele should be transformed into a green paradise again.
There’s no doubt in our mind that Marakele’s populations of the popular “Big Five” animals must be growing at a good rate. We’ve never seen so many elephants on any of our previous visits to this Park, and this latest visit also delivered us our first encounters with both Marakele’s buffaloes and lions. It is now only the Park’s leopards that still elude us.
By now our regular readers will know that we love walking around after dark looking for nocturnal creatures, and in this respect the Thutong Environmental Education Centre where we stayed delivered a range of arachnid species!
We’ve already shared with you a series of photos of a wasp dragging a paralysed caterpillar to a nesting tunnel for its young to feed on – have a look here for the complete set.
Wasp and prey
Marakele means “a place of sanctuary”, and it is as true for human visitors as it is for the immense collection of wildlife that calls this gem of a place home!
A big group of people needs a big place to stay. Marakele’s Thutong Environmental Education Centre is a dormitory-style facility built purposely to accommodate visiting school groups, however it is available for private groups when not being used by school children. Provided is six double rooms with en-suite bathrooms for the teachers, with a maximum of 128 children that can be accommodated in 16 seperate rooms with 8 bunk beds in each. Thutong also has a decently equipped kitchen to cook for that many mouths, and a large hall and fireplace. It is securely fenced – the necessity for which we clearly understood when we found lion tracks right outside the gate one morning!
Want to learn more about Marakele National Park? Why not scroll through all our posts about this special place, here.
DeWetsWild 
JUST SO WONDERFUL
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Marakele really is a special place.
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Soe! Dankie… ek het nou weer lekker gekuier!! 😉
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Ons is baie dankbaar dat jy het, AJ!
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Lovely pictures…..brings out the true beauty of Africa that we all know about……:)
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Thank you, Anindya, and welcome here at de Wets Wild!
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Nice to see the De Wets still going wild! Love your work
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So nice to hear from you again Maurice! Hope you have been well?
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Extremely busy but well, thanks. Hope you and family are doing fine too. Certainly missed your inspiring bush adventures during my self-imposed exile from photography and blogging and almost feel guilty having disappeared for so long. Seems to be called walkabout…
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Well we hope the time you spent away from these hobbies were a blessing to you nevertheless, Maurice!
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They surely were, and although she’s a blessing the Labrador pup wasn’t my idea 🙂
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A new addition to the household!
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Congratulations on your 24th September! Thank you for bringing us along with your amazing views to the land, the birds, the animals…everything!
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We’re very glad you could join us!
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Such a wonderful expanse!
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What fantastic sightings you had of the wildlife, Dries. Great shots too. The Woodpecker really gave you a funny look. 🙂
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I think he was caught between his desire to hide from us and his desire to get to the worm beneath the bark!
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De Wet, ek het so ñ groot waardering vir jou inligting en fotos. Dankie daarvoor.
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Ons waardeer al die gawe kommentaar en aanmoediging regtig!
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Beautiful photos. 🙂 Nature is as wonderful as the animals are, from the smallest to the largest. 🙂
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We absolutely agree, John!
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Hello. It sounds like you had a wonderful time at Marakele. It looks beautiful and I love your photos, you always seem to capture the essence and wildness of the places you visit. I especially like the photo of ‘heavyweights on the run’. A nice change from seeing only frontal views of rhinos. Lovely post. I have visited another wild area of South Africa. Thank you.
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We’re glad you could join us, Kim!
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Great shots! 🙂
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Thank you, Annica!
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Pragtige foto’s.
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Baie dankie, Toortsie!
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Can’t wait until you find the leopard. 🙂 But I’ll be satisfied with these during the wait.
janet
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That’s exactly why we enjoy being “out there” so much – you never know what you will find, and whatever you find is always interesting!
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