The Bourke’s Luck Potholes, at the confluence of the Treur and Blyde Rivers, form the head of the Blyde River Canyon, the third biggest canyon on earth.
“Depth” is the theme for this week’s WordPress Photo Challenge
uMkhuze Game Reserve, in the iSimangaliso Wetland Park, has a lot to offer any nature lover, no matter where their interests lie. One of the reserve’s biggest drawcards is the Nsumo Pan, a large body of water fed by the Mkuzi River. Nsumo is home to breeding pink-backed and great white pelicans, hippos and crocodiles, among the huge variety of birds and animals that live along its reed and fever-tree lined shores. The reserve authorities have made it really easy to enjoy Nsumo’s magic: a tar road skirts a part of its northern banks, there are two bird-viewing platforms at the water’s edge and a beautiful picnic site with clean ablutions and braai (barbeque) facilities.
We have lots more to share in upcoming posts about our December visit to uMkhuze Game Reserve 😀
There’s just something so very special about Ithala Game Reserve that causes us to return year after year. Maybe it is the spectacular scenery or the amazingly diverse wildlife. Maybe it’s the friendly, hospitable staff members that makes us feel so welcome. Whatever the reason (and we suppose it has to be the entire package), there was no way we couldn’t include Ithala in the itinerary of our “summer in the bush” December holidays.
Ithala’s only 197km from Chelmsford Nature Reserve, and we arrived in the morning of the 15th of December under heavily laden skies. In fact, we’d see very little sunshine during our three night stay in comfortable Ntshondwe, Ithala’s award-winning resort.
Ntshondwe, Ithala, December 2014
The reserve has a good network of all-weather gravel roads, and the rain did not interfere with our game-viewing to any large degree, although we weren’t able to enjoy quite as many picnics as we had hoped to. While we didn’t have any sightings of the predators that roam Ithala’s diverse habitats (mostly at night) on this trip, the numerous herds of large herbivores were a sight to behold.
The elephants at Ithala are shy and seldomly seen, so we count ourselves very lucky to have had two sightings of them on this trip. One sighting was of a big herd near Ngubhu Picnic Site, moving along a drainage line some distance away. The second sighting however was a thrilling affair as we happened upon two young bulls right in the road, near gate closing time, around a bend between the Ngulumbeni Loop and camp. One of the bulls hightailed it deep into the bush as soon as we appeared around the corner, but his companion decided to give us a good show for quite a while, not prepared to relinquish his spot on the road to let us pass.
Whenever there was a break in the rain, we’d undertake short walks around Ntshondwe, enjoying the opportunity to get closer to some of Ithala’s smaller and more delicate inhabitants.
Ithala in summer is a bird-watcher’s delight, and even us, relatively novice “twitchers”, managed to seek out and identify a wide variety of the reserve’s feathered denizens, despite the mostly inclement weather.
Before leaving Ithala for uMkhuze Game Reserve, we took a short, final early morning drive towards the gate and Onverwacht Loop, and were rewarded for our effort by a herd of giraffe moving serenely along the horizon, dark clouds and the sun struggling to break through providing a dramatic background to the scene.
Reason enough to return to Ithala? Absolutely! Not that we need an excuse, this place has had us under its spell for so long we won’t be able to stay away.
What is this white rhino trying to tell us?
“Express yourself” is the theme for this week’s WordPress Photo Challenge
We were fortunate to witness these two plains zebras settling a dispute at Ithala Game Reserve, during our recent summer visit there. They were so close to our vehicle we almost felt every bite and kick they dealt one another…
More from Ithala soon!
We kicked off our recent “summer in the bush” holidays with a two night stay at Chelmsford Nature Reserve near the town of Newcastle, in the north-west of Kwazulu-Natal Province. Chelmsford may be a tiny reserve as far as African game parks go, but it is a very important piece of conservation estate, conserving South Africa’s largest population of locally endangered oribi antelope.
We stayed in one of the comfortable two-bedroom self-catering chalets at Leokop Camp, right on the banks of the Ntshingwayo Dam. The reserve was busy with holidaymakers coming to enjoy the great watersport opportunities and picnics at the water’s edge, while others, like the de Wets, enjoyed the reserve’s more natural attractions.
Chelmsford Nature Reserve, December 2014
Zebra and black wildebeest at ease while visitors picnic in the background
After unpacking, we were off to explore the wonders of this special little reserve that’s crept so deep into our hearts. These plains zebra entertained us with the running of the Chelmsford Derby…
Being a grassland reserve, Chelmsford hosts large populations of plains game, including the already mentioned oribi and zebra, black wildebeest, blesbuck, and springbok, one of our national emblems. There’s no large predators at Chelmsford, but smaller carnivores like yellow mongoose and cape fox are well represented and frequently encountered.
The reserve is surrounded by farmland, and this fence-jumping cow was an unexpected find during one of our drives.
Because there’s no dangerous man-eating predators lurking in Chelmsford’s grasslands, visitors are free to explore the reserve on foot, making it easier to appreciate its smaller, less obvious, inhabitants.
Bird-watching is another pastime to revel in at Chelmsford, especially as the reserve is home to several special bird species, like the blue crane (our national bird).
For such a small piece of land, Chelmsford offers an amazing variety of scenery. Leokop-hill is an ever-present element, as is the dam, making for dramatic vistas at sunrise and sunset over the wide-open spaces.
Chelmsford may only be a small reserve without any of the charismatic Big-5 African animals, but to those that take the time to get to know it better there’s a chest of treasures waiting to be unearthed and savored. We’ll be back, that’s for sure.
Sunrise over the Midmar Dam Nature Reserve in the Midlands of Kwazulu-Natal
“Serenity” is the theme for this week’s WordPress Photo Challenge.
The long-legged oribi (oorbietjie in Afrikaans) is a small antelope, and one of the most special wildlife sightings you could hope for in South Africa.
They stand only between 50 and 65cm high at the shoulder, and weigh around 14kg. Only the males carry the sharp little horns that average between 10 and 13cm long.
These dainty antelope have very specific habitat requirements, preferring grasslands and floodplains with just the correct mix of short (for grazing) and long (for hiding) patches of grass. They also have very specific preferences as to the type of short grasses they feed on and, while they often occur near water, do not appear to drink very regularly, if at all.
Oribis are the most social of the smaller antelope species; the most commonly encountered grouping being a single territorial ram with up to four adult ewes and their lambs.
Oribi grazing next to the Kamberg Road
Oribi rams are territorial, and the family groups are extremely reluctant to leave their home ranges, even when being pursued (they prefer sprinting short distances to hide in long grass). For this reason, they suffer more than most dwarf antelope from predation and poaching. In South Africa, most lambs are born in the summer months of November and December and remain hidden for up to 4 months before they join their mother’s family group. They have a natural lifespan of 8 to 13 years.
Today, the oribi is one of South Africa’s most endangered mammals, although in many other parts of Africa they are still quite numerous. Their favoured grassland habitat is prime for farming and thus getting ever scarcer and more fragmented, while illegal hunting with dogs is a further risk to their continued survival. Nevertheless, a substantial portion of the population still occurs on private land, and the Oribi Working Group’s annual census is an important tool to establish population sizes and trends.
South Africa’s biggest single population of oribi occurs in the Chelmsford Nature Reserve in Kwazulu-Natal Province. Chelmsford was the first destination on our recent summer holidays in the bush, and we’ll soon share more about our latest visit there with you.
This must surely rank as one of the most special wildlife encounters we’ve ever had.
We came across this beautiful black rhino cow and her two younger companions (at least one, maybe both, her calves) in December in one of the game reserves we visited on our summer trip to the bush. It was an overcast evening, with the little available light fading fast and perfectly accentuating the cow’s aggressive temperament, so characteristic of the species.
Long may she reign over her piece of African wilderness.
(click on any of the images to view them in a bigger format gallery)
Contrasting light and shadows in the Echo Ravine, in the Golden Gate Highlands National Park. An easy but exquisitely beautiful walk from Glen Reenen Rest Camp delivers you to the ravine, a wonderland of enormous rock walls, dripping water, crystal clear streams and a diverse plant life. We’ll share more from Echo Ravine, and other trails at Golden Gate, in a forthcoming post.
“Shadowed” is the theme for this week’s WordPress Photo Challenge
DeWetsWild 