A brilliant night sky predicting another beautiful, bright and shiny winter’s day for the Eastern Free State and the Golden Gate Highlands National Park.
Foreshadow
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Tag Archives: Golden Gate Highlands National Park
Back at Golden Gate: 2 August 2013
We did warn you that we might be back here at Golden Gate Highlands National Park soon!
Golden Gate Highlands National Park, July 2013
Golden Gate Highlands National Park is one of our favourite destinations, as many of you will already know (because we tell you that so regularly ;-)). Our last visit there was in December and we were starting to really miss the spectacular mountain scenery, so we decided on the spur of the moment to pay Golden Gate a quick weekend visit last week.
Mountain stream
Lichens Pass snaking its way up into the mountains
Golden Gate Dam
Resting in peace at the foot of the Golden Gate
Mushroom Rocks
One of the self-catering chalets at the Golden Gate Hotel, operated by SANParks, would be our accommodations for the night. Our well-appointed unit had a unobstructed view of the iconic Brandwag buttress, which is illuminated at night.
Golden Gate Chalet
A room with a view
Brandwag illuminated at night
Another view of Brandwag
The Golden Gate Hotel
Birdlife abounds around the chalets at the Golden Gate Hotel
Birdlife abounds around the chalets at the Golden Gate Hotel
The vulture hide is a very welcome recent addition to the Park’s facilities and we had a fantastic sighting of jackal / vulture interaction there on the Saturday afternoon – have a look at our “Bowling for Buzzards” post for pictures from that episode.
The Cape Griffon is an endangered species
The Cape Griffon is an endangered species
The vulture “restaurant” has a stunning view!
Black-backed jackal
Setting out at first light on Sunday morning it was clear that winter had a firm hold on this mountainous landscape. At the top of Lichens Pass our temperature gauge was showing 5 degrees below freezing at 07:00am! Despite the bitter cold we were able to enjoy a couple of good game sightings and beautiful scenery.
Zebra sunrise
Plains zebra
A herd of blesbok making their way through the frosty landscape
Sunrise over the Eastern Free State
Black wildebeest
After a leisurely picnic lunch beneath a protea-bush in the Basotho Village, we had to head for home. One night simply wasn’t enough, and we will be returning soon!
Beautiful mountain vistas at the eastern entrance to Golden Gate Highlands National Park
The Golden Gate Highlands National Park will celebrate its fiftieth anniversary in September this year, and to mark the event SANParks is offering a half-price promotion – have a look if you also need to escape to the mountains in a hurry!
Bowling for Buzzards!
This afternoon, watching from the hide at the Golden Gate vulture restaurant*, I was treated to one of the most entertaining sequences of animal interaction I have ever experienced!
A pair of black-backed jackals were protecting the last scraps of a carcass with everything they had against a group of Cape griffons.
I couldn’t help but think of the “bowling for buzzards” scene in the animated Disney movie “The Lion King” where meerkat Timon and warthog Pumbaa save little Simba by rushing into the huddle of vultures surrounding the lion cub!
A “Vulture Restaurant” is a feeding station where carcasses are made available for vultures in safe places to mitigate the risk of them feeding on poisoned carcasses elsewhere.
Fresh
Fresh mountain water and crisp mountain air on a sunny, but windy, winters day… We’re spending the weekend in the beautiful Golden Gate Highlands National Park, in the eastern Free State Province of South Africa.
Golden Gate Highlands National Park – December 2012
Sandstone cliffs and rolling grasslands, painted in the warm golden glow of a Free State sunrise.
Golden Gate sunrise
The Free State Province of South Africa has a reputation for being flat and featureless, and for the most part that is true. But in the east of the province the Maluti and Drakensberg mountain ranges rise to dizzying altitudes, and it is in the foothills of these majestic peaks that the Golden Gate Highlands National Park was proclaimed in September 1963.
Golden Gate scenery
Golden Gate is another of our favourite South African nature destinations and after a relaxed four hour drive from Pretoria we were overjoyed to be back at the quaint Glen Reenen Rest Camp, our home-away-from-home for three nights at the end of December 2012.
Glen Reenen
Glen Reenen
Glen Reenen
Rondawel in Glen Reenen
The mountainous landscape and grand sandstone rock formations, hundreds of millions of years old, is what Golden Gate is most famous for – with the iconic Brandwag Buttress standing guard over the Park being the star attraction.
Brandwag Buttress
Golden Gate scenery
Mushroom Rocks
This is a summer rainfall area and there was water in abundance throughout the Park during our visit – water as fresh, cool and crystal clear as only a mountain spring can produce.
The Little Caledon River
Mountain stream
Stream flowing past Glen Reenen
Pure mountain water
As with all mountain areas one needs to be mindful that the weather can change very quickly and misty mornings are a regular occurrence, making for hazardous driving along the Lichens Pass that snakes through the reserve.
Clouds rolling in over Golden Gate Highlands National Park
Misty valleys along Lichens Pass
The sun trying to break through heavy cloud
There are numerous scenic hiking trails of varying length and difficulty along which the park can be explored, and horse-trails are on offer for both novice and experienced riders. Two short, tarred game-viewing drives loop across the plateaus near Glen Reenen, while a recent addition that should prove very popular in years to come is a photographic hide built at the Park’s vulture restaurant where carcasses are laid out to supplement the diets of two endangered vulture species that occur in the Park: the Cape Griffon and the Bearded Vulture.
Scenic hiking trail
Vulture hide
Of course, the Park also harbours a variety of other birds and animals, all adapted to the highlands environment.
Black wildebeest, with Brandwag in the background
Black wildebeest
Blesbok
Baboons regularly forage through the camp
Secretary bird
Red hartebeest
This serval was a pleasant surprise
Plains Zebra
Black-backed Jackal, the most often encountered of Golden Gate’s carnivores
Grey rhebuck, a mountain-loving antelope endemic to South Africa
While at Golden Gate we posted some pictures on a daily basis – have a look if you’d like to see more:
The Golden Gate Highlands National Park will remain close to our hearts for as long as those mighty golden cliffs and grassy peaks tower over the wooded valleys, rolling fields and crystal streams in their shadow below!
Happy New Year!
de Wets Wild would like to wish all our followers and readers everything of the best for 2013!
Golden Gate: 28 December 2012
Our time at Golden Gate is drawing to a close – tomorrow morning we will be heading back to the city. But as if to console us, Golden Gate Highlands National Park has given us a rare and precious parting gift: a fleeting glimpse of a serval, a rarely seen small wild cat, just after sunset.
Our 2012 in Pictures
For the final challenge of 2012, we decided to submit a selection of photographs of the various accommodation units we stayed in while exploring South Africa’s wild places this year (you can click on the images for a clearer view).
Have a look here for more submissions in this week’s challenge.
Unusual
Nature has sculpted a whole bunch of unusual rock formations – on both a large and small scale – from the sedimentary sandstone here at Golden Gate Highlands National Park in South Africa.
(you can click on the images to see them enlarged in a gallery)
Brandwag Buttress
Sedimentary rocks
Brandwag Buttress
Mushroom Rocks
Sedimentary rocks
Golden Gate Scenery
Golden Gate Scenery
We’re participating in the online adventure travel magazine LetsBeWild.com‘s Wild Weekly Photo Challenge for bloggers. This week’s challenge is “Unusual“.
DeWetsWild 