Category Archives: Mpumalanga Province

Our experiences in the reserves of Mpumalanga, South Africa

Biyamiti Bushveld Camp, Kruger National Park

Our most treasured memory of Biyamiti takes us back many years while visiting with our good friends, the Ristows. A pride of lions caught some hapless prey animal just after sunset in the riverbed in front of camp. Soon after, a pack of hyenas starting mobbing the kings of the jungle and tried taking over the kill, only to have their hysterical, blood-curdling giggling silenced in a most impressive fashion by the booming, window-rattling roaring of the lions. It was a night-time African symphony that will remain fresh in our memories forever.

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Biyamiti Bushveld Camp is beautifully located on the bank of the seasonal river of the same name, in the far south of the Kruger National Park. This is one of Kruger’s most popular camps, and it is often a hard task to book accommodation there even a year in advance. It’s a small camp, with only fifteen 4- or 5-sleeper, self-catered accommodation units, most offering a view over the river bed in front of the camp and all very privately situated. Bushbuck make themselves at home on the jackalberry-shaded lawns, and a wide variety of birds provide the background music throughout the day and night. There’s no restaurant or shop in Biyamiti, adding to the peaceful atmosphere.

Herd of elephant in the Biyamiti River in front of the camp

Biyamiti cottage

This is one of the Kruger’s most prolific game-viewing areas, and as an added bonus the 22 kilometres of riverine road that leads to Biyamiti is only accessible to guests actually staying in the camp, ideal for those who don’t like sharing their big-five encounters with throngs of other tourists all jostling for the best view. Additionally, guided walks and drives are available and the night drives especially come highly recommended.

Hyena on night drive

Buffalo

Baby elephant walk

Spotted hyena

Elephants frequent the Biyamiti rivercourse

Ground hornbill

Kudu

Waterbuck

Wild dog

a Scrub Hare in camp

White rhinoceros

Biyamiti is a reliable place for leopard sightings

Baboons enjoying the fruits of the sausage tree

Plains zebra

Lion too abound around Biyamiti

The Biyamiti-area has two very scenic highlights to offer. The first is the causeway over the Biyamiti river, on the gravel S114-road between Malelane and Skukuza, where a little weir and several rock pools ensures a reliable source of water year round to which a wide variety of birds, reptiles and big game is drawn throughout the day.

Biyamiti scenery

Biyamiti weir is a beautiful but dangerous place

Biyamiti scenery

Another treasure is a hilltop viewsite, only about two kilometers from camp, providing a panoramic vista over a broad bend in the river below. This is an ideal place to breathe in a spectacular African sunset before taking a slow drive back to camp and still be in time for the gates closing.

Biyamiti viewsite

Biyamiti is a tranquil slice of game-viewing heaven and certainly deserves its popular reputation.

The Biyamiti at its confluence with the Crocodile River

Olifants Wilderness Trail, June 2013

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Through our eyes

A small group of people are inspecting a dung-covered thorn-bush out in the African wilderness, the sun having just peeked over the eastern horizon, listening enchanted to their guide explaining the scene: “Long ago, the hippo lived on land with the elephant, the rhino and the buffalo. But Hippo complained bitterly to the Creator that his skin was far too sensitive for the African sun and pleaded to be allowed to live in the water. Crocodile wasn’t at all pleased with this arrangement though, fearing that the bulky hippo would eat all the fish in the river. Hippo then promised to spread his dung with his tail so that Crocodile could check that there was no fish bones in it. But the crocodile was still not convinced, as he’d have to go onto dry land to check Hippo’s dung, so Hippo put Crocodile’s mind at ease by saying that the rangers would check the dung on his behalf. And this is what we’re doing now, just checking that Hippo is keeping to his agreement with Crocodile”

My brother Niel and I arrived early morning on Saturday 15^th of June for our annual brothers-trip to the Kruger National Park. We’d slowly make our way up to Satara Rest Camp that day, before joining the Olifants Wilderness Trail on Sunday afternoon at Letaba Rest Camp. Lots of time for relaxed game-viewing and photography along the way, and Kruger delivered the goods as always.

Kudu

Lofty leopard

Spotted hyena

Ostrich

Buffalo bull

Ground hornbills

Satara sunset

Klipspringer

Letaba Elephant Hall

Red-billed oxpeckers

Plains zebra

Baby crocodile

Hippopotamus

Buffalo calf

Elephant bull

Baboon close-up

Spotted hyena

White rhinoceros

At 15:00 our Trail Guides Aaron and Louis meet up with Niel and I and the six other participants with whom we’ll be sharing our much-anticipated wilderness experience for the next three nights. It’s a two-and-a-half hour drive to the base camp, with frequent stops to appreciate the scenery and rich bird and animal life for which the Kruger Park is so renowned, and by the time we arrive darkness had already engulfed the small rustic camp.

Plains zebra

Giant eagle owl

Hamerkop catching supper

Little elephant intimidation

The road into the wilderness

The unspoiled African wilderness quickly makes friends of strangers, and there’s nothing to help the process along like a camp fire – or bush TV as Louis describes it because it’s so hypnotic. In the light of the dancing flames and with the grunting of hippos in the background, Aaron explains our schedule for the next three days and goes through some basic safety pointers for walking among dangerous wild animals. There’d be two days of walking, each starting with an early wake-up, coffee and rusks before dawn. At first light we’d drive a short distance into the wilderness before setting off on foot, spending four to five hours in the veld and enjoying a light picnic breakfast at a scenic spot, before returning to base for lunch and some quiet relaxation. The afternoon walks would be at a slower pace, taking in the setting sun from a beautiful vantage point, where after we’d return to camp for dinner before relaxing around the camp fire again. We’re also introduced to Shadrack, the shy camp caretaker and the cook responsible for the hearty traditional South African meals we’d enjoy for the next couple of days.

When walking in the bush, the focus shifts from the big hairy scary creatures to the smaller features that would normally go unnoticed while driving through the Park, although there’s always a good chance of encountering big game along the way. Easy to understand therefore why your heart would start racing when a scrub hare unexpectedly jumps up next to your feet while walking through the tall “adrenalin grass” next to the Hlahleni stream!

Admiring the wilderness

Olifants Trail scenery

Leopard claw marks on a baobab trunk

Aaron showing us where a rhino had been lying in the shade a day before

Lion jaw bone

Thirsty calf

Giraffe approached on foot

Olifants Trail scenery

Nice spot for a morning picnic

Impression of an elephant trunk in the dust

Dwarfed by an ancient baobab

Olifants Trail scenery

Dung beetle balls dug up by a ratel (honey badger)

Korhaan

Hippo skull

Olifants Trail scenery

Remnants of a muddy puddle

The Olifants Wilderness Trail has been running since 1979, and the little base camp is as rustic today as it was then. Four A-frame huts, each with two beds, provide accommodation to the trailists, who enjoy their meals and each other’s company at the communal boma and fireplace which has a commanding view over the Olifants River and the Lebombo Mountains. At the back of the camp are the pole-enclosed toilets and hot-water showers. There’s no electricity (or cellphone reception) at the camp, so in the evenings and early mornings paraffin lamps add to the camp’s peaceful atmosphere. This is wilderness at its uncluttered best, and a rich variety of birds and animals visit the camp and surrounds throughout the day.

Yellow-billed hornbills

Greenbul

Olifants Wilderness Trail Accommodation

Crested francolins

Tree squirrel

Sitting atop a large boulder next to a deep river pool, watching the sun set over the Olifants while hippos are snorting and splashing just metres away, was the absolute highlight of our Olifants Wilderness Trail experience; an abiding memory that will remain with us forever.

Walking down the Olifants’ steep banks

Inspecting the humans on the rock

Magical sunset

Hippo rushing to deep water

Magical sunset

Another curious hippo

All too soon the time came to return to civilisation. The mood on the vehicle was a lot more sombre on the way back to Letaba, and it was with heavy hearts that we said goodbye to Aaron, Louis and our fellow trailists.

Kudu calf

Bateleur

Giraffe bull

For Niel and I it was time to head back to the city, but Kruger had one more surprise in store for us on the way to Phalaborwa Gate. Masthulele, currently the biggest of Kruger’s Tuskers, accompanied by two younger bulls, was enjoying a drink from a pool in one of the dry river courses. How nice it was to bump into this familiar old friend!

Masthulele

Crocodile at Sable Dam

Camouflage

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Thanks to their dappled coloration, lithe bodies and stealthy habits, leopards are supremely camouflaged, even when out in the open. We found this one lazing away the midday heat in a marula tree near Nhlanguleni, in the Kruger National Park.

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We’re participating in the online adventure travel and photography magazine LetsBeWild.com‘s Wild Weekly Photo Challenge for bloggers. This week’s challenge is “Camouflage“.

Pretoriuskop Rest Camp, Kruger National Park

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In 1927, a total of three tourist vehicles visited the Kruger National Park, entering through the Numbi Gate. A year later, the first accommodation was provided for visitors in what was then the garden of the legendary ranger Harry Wolhuter about nine kilometres into the Park. By 1931 Pretoriuskop, as the Rest Camp became known, and “The Game Reserve” had become so popular and grown so big that a permanent camp manager had to be appointed.

Like those first visitors, I had my first taste of the Kruger National Park as a small boy, four years old, entering through the Numbi Gate to overnight at Pretoriuskop, the Park’s oldest and historically richest rest camp.

Pretoriuskop scenery

Till this day, the huge “Indaba Tree” beneath which ranger Wolhuter held his staff meetings in the 1920’s can be seen inside the camp. But Pretoriuskop’s history dates back much further than that. Along the main road leading from Numbi to the camp, the lonely grave of Voortrekker Willem Pretorius who died in 1845, buried here by pioneering trader Joao Albasini, can be seen below the hill known as Pretoriuskop ever since. Albasini had a trading post to the north of Pretoriuskop, and the ruins of his house and shop can still be viewed today at the Phabeni Gate.

The Voortrekkers came along here in the 1840’s en route to Delagoa Bay (later Lourenco Marques and now known as Maputo), and later, following the discovery of gold at Pilgrims Rest in the interior, the same old ox-wagon route (Oude Wagenpad in Dutch) was used by the transport riders carrying goods between the gold fields and the harbour. Today, the H2-2 tourist road still follows the same general course as that historic trail, and along the way a number of historic landmarks can be appreciated. One of these, visible from quite a distance, is Ship Mountain – a strange rocky outcrop in the shape of a ship overturned – which was a popular place for the transport riders to camp out. The birthplace of South Africa’s most famous dog, Jock, is another point of interest along the way. In the 1880’s Jock, and his owner Percy Fitzpatrick, then a transport rider, had many adventures in the lowveld, immortalised in Sir Percy’s book “Jock of the Bushveld”.

Ship Mountain, seen from the “Oude Wagenpad”

Today, Pretoriuskop is one of the Kruger National Park’s bigger rest camps yet it retains its historic and quiet, friendly character, with impala and guineafowl moving peacefully around the terrain. Accommodation ranges from camping and very basic huts to luxury guest houses, a beautiful pool built into a natural rock face is available for guest’s enjoyment and a fully stocked shop, restaurant, cafeteria and petrol station makes for a comfortable stay. Wolhuter’s Hut (no longer used to accommodate guests) has been preserved to show today’s visitors the accommodation provided to those first guests at Pretoriuskop in the 1920’s.

Pretoriuskop Rest Camp

Pretoriuskop swimming pool

Pretoriuskop Rest Camp

Wolhuter’s hut in Pretoriuskop

Because Pretoriuskop is located at a higher altitude, the camp is much cooler, even during the height of summer, than the rest of the Park. This also means that Pretoriuskop has a higher annual rainfall, and the sourveld vegetation around the camp is characterised by tall grass and dense bush, making game viewing tricky. Nevertheless, there’s a good chance of encountering large predators on any of the roads that radiate from the camp, kudu are numerous thanks to the thick vegetation, and it is here that the first white rhinos were reintroduced into the Kruger Park in 1961, having been wiped out of the lowveld by hunters by 1896. Another special reason to visit Pretoriuskop is the chance to encounter some of the rarer antelope, like sable, lichtenstein’s hartebeest, tsessebe and reedbuck, that still occur here in small groups.

Waterbuck at Shitlhave Dam near Pretoriuskop

Helmeted Guineafowl

White rhinoceros

Lioness and cub atop Shabeni

Black-Headed Oriole

Hippopotamus

Waterbuck

Water monitor

Warthog

Kudu

Kudu cow and calf

Lichtenstein’s Hartebeest

To us, the Pretoriuskop area’s scenery is the biggest attraction though. Mestel and Shitlhave Dams are near the camp and aside from residents pods of hippo and herds of waterbuck attract streams of game looking to quench their thirst. The enormous granitic outcrops, like Manungu and Shabeni, so characteristic of this area, offer beautiful photo opportunities and driving slowly around them in the golden light of the late afternoon, with magnificent views in all directions, is a truly relaxing, almost meditative, undertaking that has to be experienced to be appreciated.

Rocky outcrops lending character to the landscape around Pretoriuskop

Stream crossing near Pretoriuskop

Rocky outcrops lending character to the landscape around Pretoriuskop

The massive granite dome of Shabeni

Pretoriuskop vegetation

Kruger National Park, April 2013

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We recently had another (long awaited) breakaway to the paradise that is the Kruger National Park, spending one night in historic Pretoriuskop Rest Camp followed by four nights in Crocodile Bridge Rest Camp. Both these camps are located in the very popular south of the Park and we’ll bring you more detail on each in future installments of de Wets Wild.

Thanks to two consecutive years of exceptionally high rainfall the Park is lush and green with surface water abounding in all the watercourses and seasonal pans. Of course this made searching for game a little harder but we still had numerous excellent sightings of the spectacular wild animals and birds for which the Kruger National Park is known the world over. The weather also played along beautifully and for six days we could forget that winter is hiding just around the corner here in South Africa.

Click on any of the images below to view them all in a carousel gallery, and have a look at the links provided at the end for some additional photos taken during our most recent trip to heaven.

Malelane sunrise

Rhino roadblock – pity we don’t understand what he’s saying!

Waterbuck at Shitlhave Dam near Pretoriuskop

Hyenas on the move

Kudu couw

Not a hungry hungry hippo!

The King marking his territory

Princess in hiding

Spotted hyena on the lookout for breakfast

Old man buffalo

Stripes and more stripes

Hippos at Ntandanyathi Hide

Impala sizing up one another

Tree agama

Not happy to be disturbed during lunch

Elephant herd on the move

A flock of storks catching fish trapped in a small pool

Young giraffe bulls sparring

Rocky outcrops lending character to the landscape around Pretoriuskop

Pretoriuskop Rest Camp

Stream crossing near Pretoriuskop

Rocky outcrops lending character to the landscape around Pretoriuskop

Marula sunrise near Crocodile Bridge

Crocodile Bridge Rest Camp

Pattern

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The pattern on the posterior of the Common Waterbuck gives the impression that the animal had an unfortunate encounter with a freshly-painted toilet seat. As their name suggests these large, gregarious antelope are never found far from a permanent water source.

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“Pattern” is the theme for this week’s WordPress Photo Challenge

Kruger Park 30/04/2013

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We’ve enjoyed our final sunset of this Kruger Park visit, and wasn’t it gorgeous?

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Tomorrow we’ll be heading back home to Pretoria, but only after we undertake a final game drive. Will Kruger have one more parting gift in store for us?

Birds of a feather

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We’re participating in the online adventure travel and photography magazine LetsBeWild.com‘s Wild Weekly Photo Challenge for bloggers. This week’s challenge is “Birds of a feather” and we’re submitting a collection of photographs of some of the more than one hundred bird species we’ve identified over the last five days that we’ve been spending here in the Kruger National Park.

Blue Waxbill

Pied wagtail

Hooded (left) and Lappet-faced (right) Vultures

Tawny Eagle

Wire-tailed Swallow

Lilac-breasted Roller

Pearl-spotted owlet

White-crowned Lapwing

Yellow-billed Hornbill

Hamerkop

Helmeted Guineafowl

Ground Hornbill

Black Flycatcher

Fish Eagle

Kori Bustard

White-fronted Bee-eater

Bateleur

Kruger Park 29/04/2013

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What a view!

Today we enjoyed our lunch at the picnic spot high above the Mlondozi Dam, from where we could watch pods of hippos and herds of elephants mingle while enjoying a cool drink ourselves.

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