Tag Archives: picnic spots

Easter at Marakele

If you thought we were a bit quiet over the Easter Weekend you’d be right, as we disappeared into the Marakele National Park in the Waterberg Mountains of the Limpopo Province, celebrating the cornerstone of our Chrisitian faith with good friends and family surrounded by awesome scenery and beautiful wildlife.

Welcome to Marakele National Park

The full moon rising over the Waterberg (photo by Joubert)

Early morning at Marakele

The view from the road to the top of Lenong Viewpoint on the mountain

Everlastings thrive on the mountain

Marakele scenery

Impressive cliffs looming over Thutong

Marakele scenery

The view from the top of Lenong Viewpoint on the mountain

Marakele scenery

The plains and Tlopi Dam below Mbidi Loop

Marakele afternoon sun

Common Sugarbush bud (photo by Joubert)

View over the valley and Waterberg range from Thutong

Marakele’s such a treasure chest of diverse wildlife that it is hard to decide what to show and what to leave out. Let’s start then with a few of the “creepy crawlies” that we encountered while exploring the Park.

Adult Blotched Antlion

Common Dotted Border butterfly

Guinea-fowl Butterfly

Common Orange Tip butterfly

Zebra White butterfly

Large moth

Praying Mantis

Two-spotted Ground Beetle

A Velvet Ant female – the females are flightless

Flattie Spider against a bathroom wall

Grass Funnel-web Spider

Red Toad

Turner’s Giant Gecko

Speckled Rock Skink (photo by Joubert)

Western Stripe-bellied Sand Snake

WIth Autumn now in full swing in South Africa most of the summer visiting migrant birds have departed for warmer environs already, but bird watching at Marakele over Easter was still a special treat!

Brown-crowned Tchagra

Cape Bunting

Cape Robin Chat

Cape Rock Thrush (male)

Cape Vultures in flight over Marakele – the Park is home to the world’s biggest colony of these birds.

Emerald-spotted Wood Dove

Familiar Chat

Fork-tailed Drongo

Freckled Nightjar

Southern Grey-headed Sparrow

Lesser Striped Swallow

Long-tailed Paradise Whydah (shortly before molting)

Mocking Cliff-Chat male

Pearl-spotted Owlet

Rock Kestrels in flight

White-fronted Bee-eater

Yellow-fronted Canary

What would a National Park be without some charismatic large mammals? Marakele certainly didn’t disappoint on that score, even though the lush vegetation following the rainy season did make game-viewing a bit trickier than usual.

Blue Wildebeest

Cantankerous Buffalo bull

Dassie (Rock Hyrax)

Elephant visiting us at Thutong one night (caught on our camera-trap)

Elephant teenager showing off!

This elephant cow didn’t appreciate our presence one bit, even though we gave her plenty of space!

Giraffe bull

Impala ram

Impala lamb

Klipspringer ewe

Klipspringer pair

Kudu bull

Kudu calf

Kudu cow close-up

Majestic Kudu Bull

Juvenile Kudu

Kudu cow

Lioness (photo by Joubert)

Young male lion at Marakele

Nyala calf

Plains Zebras

Plains Zebra close-up

Vervet Monkey (photo by Joubert)

Warthog

White Rhinos

Altogether we spent 4 nights in Marakele on this trip, arriving late on the 18th and departing again on the morning of the 22nd of April 2019. When visiting Marakele in a big group there’s no better option than to stay at the Thutong Environmental Education Centre (as we did) in a remote corner of the Park.

Special friends and family sharing a beautiful piece of our country

Thutong Environmental Education Centre, Marakele NP, April 2019

We’ve covered Marakele extensively in previous posts on de Wets Wild, so why not have a read through all of them if you are interested to learn more about this magical piece of our country.

Autumn Highlands Holidays – uKhahlamba Drakensberg

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After kicking off at Glen Reenen in the Golden Gate Highlands National Park, the next destination on our Autumn Highlands Holidays itinerary was the uKhahlamba Drakensberg Park in Kwazulu-Natal Province – we planned to spend five nights at Thendele in the Royal Natal National Park followed by five nights at the Giant’s Castle Game Reserve.

The Drakensberg is a favourite destination for many South Africans (like us!) and international visitors alike – with such magnificent scenery and diverse activities on offer to enjoy the great outdoors it is easy to understand why! We’ve already shown off the beauty of the Amphitheatre and the Cascades but the Drakensberg has so much more to see – just look:!

Moss and ferns growing on rocks in a forest at Thendele

View northwards from behind Thendele

Mahai stream

Moss and ferns growing on rocks in a forest at Thendele

Dooley Mountain

A quiet pool on the Mahai stream

Plowman’s Kop

View towards Devil’s Hoek from below Thendele

Looking towards Thendele from the Tugela Gorge trail

Tugela River

Policeman’s Helmet

Royal Natal scenery – a wider view of the Policeman’s Helmet

Royal Natal – Dooley Mountain

Small falls in Fairy Glen

Looking from Thendele towards Mahai

One would expect that any plants occurring in the often difficult climatic conditions of the Drakensberg would be very tough and hardy – and they are, but that doesn’t mean the plants found here are any less pretty than those found in more tropical climes! We’ll be showcasing a few of them in more detail in the coming weeks.

Moss growing on the trunk of a Yellowwood Tree in the forest at Thendele

River Lily

Beautiful Drakensberg flowers

Highveld Cabbage Tree

Grassplume in the wind

Beautiful Drakensberg flowers

Drakensberg flowers

Highveld Cabbage Trees

Various kinds of ferns adorn the trails in Royal Natal

Common Tree Ferns

Common Tree Fern

River Lilies

Beautiful Drakensberg flowers

Common Sugarbush

Common Sugarbush dot a hillside below Thendele in Royal Natal National Park

The number of invertebrates that find a home in these harsh highland habitats always astounds me – there are interesting insects and spiders to be found almost everywhere you look! You can look forward to new posts featuring a few of these in the coming weeks as well!

Unidentified large moth

Common Green Mantid

African Grass Blue butterfly

Common Zebra Blue butterfly

Dropwing Dragonfly

Golden Orb-web Spider

Rainforest Brown butterfly

Common Hottentot butterfly

Common Zebra Blue butterfly

Cupreous Blue butterfly

Gaudy Commodore butterfly

Drakensberg Malachite

Pea Blue butterflies

Orb-web Spider

Julia Skimmer

Dropwing Dragonfly

Gold-spotted Sylph butterfly

Bush Bronze butterfly

Drakensberg Malachite

Rainforest Brown butterfly

Unidentified kind of spider

Do you still remember the great fun Joubert had photographing the guineafowls in Thendele? They’re just one of 83 species of birds we managed to identify during our time in “The ‘Berg” – here’s a few more of the feathered inhabitants of the Royal Natal section of the uKhahlamba Drakensberg Park and some of them will soon feature in their own posts here at de Wets Wild.

African Olive Pigeon

Familiar Chat

Fiscal Flycatcher

Southern Black Flycatcher

Cape Wagtail

Olive Thrush

Speckled Mousebird

African Black Duck

Black-headed Heron

Cape Robin-Chat

Cape White-eye

Chorister Robin-Chat

Common Moorhen

Dark-capped Bulbul

Egyptian Geese in flight

Male Greater Double-collared Sunbird

Hadeda Ibis

Helmeted Guineafowl youngsters

Little Grebe chick

Red-collared Widowbird

Southern Boubou

White-necked Raven

White-rumped Swift

African Dusky Flycatcher

Brimstone Canary

Immature Fork-tailed Drongo

Golden-breasted Bunting

Lazy Cisticola

Male Southern Double-collared Sunbird (male)

Jackal Buzzard in flight over Thendele

Levaillant’s Cisticola

Male Pin-tailed Whydah (lost the trailing feathers somehow)

Verreaux’s Eagle in flight over Thendele

Cape Eagle Owl

Cape Rock Thrush (female)

Cape White-eye

Greater Striped Swallow

Tawny-flanked Prinia

We didn’t expect to find a pair of Southern Ground Hornbills roaming the grasslands in the rain at Rugged Glen!

We’ve already shown you some of the amphibians we found at Mahai, but Royal Natal is also home to many other kinds of four-footed creatures, both cold- and warm blooded.

Baboons grooming

Baboon posing for a photo

Female baboon with baby

Cape Grey Mongoose

Bushbuck ewe with unwelcome visitors

Bushbuck ewe in hiding

Common Duiker

Rock Hyrax, or Dassie

Southern Rock Agama

Red-sided Skink

Speckled Rock Skink

Thendele is the only accommodation option in the Royal Natal National Park (campers can set up their caravans and tents at Mahai or Rugged Glen) and is built in two sections – the older Lower Camp and the newer Upper Camp. All units have lovely views of the Amphitheatre, but those units in the Upper Camp are more spacious and has more privacy. On this trip however we stayed in unit 12, a 2-bedroomed chalet in the Lower Camp, for 5 nights, and had no reason for complaint – everything was in good working order and it was a very comfortable place to rest after a day exploring the scenic splendour on offer at Royal Natal.

Thendele Cottage #12, Royal Natal National Park, March 2019

Mist settling in at Thendele as we depart for Giant’s Castle

From Thendele we departed for Giant’s Castle, further south into the Drakensberg range, on the 26th of March. We were booked to stay at Giant’s Castle for 5 nights as well, but due to me feeling quite unwell we opted to return to Pretoria after just one night there. Unfortunately this meant that we left Giant’s Castle with very few photographs, but that’s a good excuse to return soon we think!

Gate into Giant’s Castle Reserve

Giant’s Castle, Unit 7, uKhahlamba Drakensberg Park, March 2019

View from unit 7 at Giant’s Castle

Large moth of an unidentified species

Cape White-eye

Olive Woodpecker

Baboon on a wet thatch roof at Giant’s Castle

Rock Hyrax, or Dassie

Highveld Cabbage Trees forming a focal point in a wooded cluster of trees at Giant’s Castle

The Royal Natal National Park and Giant’s Castle Game Reserve are our two favourite destinations in the uKhahlamba Drakensberg Park. Both of these places can be booked through Ezemvelo KZN Wildlife.

Location of Royal Natal and Giant’s Castle (drawn with Google Maps)

Autumn Highlands Holidays – Frogging at Mahai

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We recently started nurturing more than a passing interest in South Africa’s different kinds of amphibians, adding another fascinating facet to our enjoyment of our natural heritage. When we visited the Royal Natal National Park in March the trout dam at Mahai proved an excellent spot to go looking for frogs and toads, and other aquatic life, as soon as darkness fell.

(Look out for a special feature post about the Common River Frog to be published here in early June, and follow the links for more on the Painted Reed Frog and Raucous Toad in the meantime)

Common River Frog

Painted Reed Frog

Raucous Toad

Freshwater Crab

By day, the dam at Mahai is a favourite spot for a quiet picnic. We also saw a few trout fisherman achieving success with their rods.

Mahai Dam

The Amphitheatre from Mahai Dam

Tranquility at the Mahai Dam

Autumn Highland Holidays – Royal Natal’s Cascades

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While the Amphitheatre, which we showed you a few days ago, certainly is Royal Natal’s most awe-inspiring feature, there’s another spot in the Park that few visitors do not spend some time at, and that is The Cascades – a beautiful stretch of the Mahai stream where the water drops over, around and even through some large rocky barriers, just a few minutes walk from the camping area. The rock pools are a delight for people old and young to cool of weary feet and bodies after a tough day’s hiking.

The Cascades

At the Cascades in Royal Natal National Park

Autumn Highlands Holidays – All Eyes on the Amphitheatre

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At Royal Natal in the uKhahlamba Drakensberg Park, there’s one spectacular natural feature that stands out above all the rest, literally and figuratively, and that is the amazing Amphitheatre – a wall of rock 5km wide with its highest peak, the Sentinel, towering over 1,800m above the Tugela River flowing in the valley below and 3,165m above sea level!

On our first day, the Ampitheatre was completely shrouded in clouds

Still heavy skies on the 2nd day, but they lifted the veil a little

Drakensberg Amphitheatre seen from Thendele in the Royal Natal National Park, 23 March 2019

The Eastern Buttress of the Amphitheatre

Sentinel Peak

Walking in Royal Natal

The Amphitheatre from the Tugela Gorge walk

The Amphitheatre from behind Thendele

The Amphitheatre from Thendele

The Amphitheatre from unit 12 at Thendele

The Amphitheatre

Tugela River

Iconic Royal Natal

The Amphitheatre from the Tugela River

The Amphitheatre from Mahai Visitor Centre

The Amphitheatre from Fairy Glen walk

The Amphitheatre from Mahai Dam

Autumn Highlands Holidays – Golden Gate

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About time we started telling you about our autumn holidays in the mountains in detail, isn’t it!?

Our first stop was an old and familiar favourite: Golden Gate Highlands National Park in the eastern Free State Province, with scenery so unique that photos from there are instantly recognisable. Here in the foothills of the Maluti and Drakensberg ranges, rugged rocks, hillsides green with waving grass and crystal-clear streams of fresh water all beckon to be explored, and the de Wets just can’t resist!

Golden Gate Dam

Golden Gate scenery

Brandwag Buttress seen from Glen Reenen

Brandwag Buttress seen from the Golden Gate Hotel

Brandwag seen from the Golden Gate Hotel

Scenery along the Mushroom Rocks Trail in Golden Gate Highlands National Park

Big sky country!

Mountain views

Golden Gate’s vulture restaurant

Scenery along Blesbok Loop in Golden Gate

Golden Gate photographer

Golden Gate scenery

Golden Gate scenery – the turnoff to Kestell

Golden Gate scenery

Impressive rock formations typify Golden Gate

Little Caledon

Poplar and Blue Sky

Clean Mountain Water

Oak Trees in the Meriting Picnic Site

Little Caledon River near Wilgenhof

Walking in the Mountains

Mountain stream

Little Caledon River flowing past Glen Reenen

View from Highlands Mountain Retreat

View towards the Drakensberg

Dolerite Dyke formation

Full Moon over Glen Reenen

Walking around Golden Gate is the best way to experience the variety of beautiful wildflowers adorning this special place.

Beautiful wildflowers at Golden Gate

Beautiful wildflowers at Golden Gate: River Lilies

Beautiful wildflowers at Golden Gate

And then while taking in the floral splendour you are bound to notice the astounding diversity of insects, amphibians and reptiles that have made this highland habitat home.

African Monarch

Common Geranium Bronze

Common Meadow White

Table Mountain Beauty

Wandering Donkey Acraea

Yellow Pansy

Swamp Bluet

Unidentified Grasshopper

Maize Beetles might not be indigenous to South Africa, and actually they are an agricultural pest, but they still make a pretty picture!

Leprous Grasshopper

Wandering Wolf Spider with a fly it caught

Unidentified Grasshoppers, possibly from the genus Catantops

Raucous Toad (photo by Joubert)

Speckled Rock Skink

Golden Gate also boasts with a wonderful array of birds, many kinds of which are hard to find elsewhere in the country. During the 4 days we spent in the Park we identified 56 species of bird, just a small slice of the 180 kinds that have been recorded here since the Park was proclaimed over 50 years ago.

Banded Martin

Little Grebe with chicks

Greater Striped Swallows

Ground Woodpeckers

Amur Falcon (photo by Joubert)

Pied Starling

Cape Canaries

Cape Sparrow

Cinnamon-breasted Bunting

Common Fiscal

Grey-winged Francolin

Mountain Wheatear

Red-knobbed Coot

African Black Duck

White-rumped Swift

White-throated Swallow

African Stonechat

Cape Weaver

Crested Barbet

Hadeda

Levaillant’s Cisticola

Red-collared Widowbird

Yellow-billed Ducks

Cape Turtle Dove

Speckled Mousebird

Female Red-winged Starling

Male Red-winged Starling

Red-winged Starling pair

Golden Gate’s also home to a selection of mammals, both big and small, that are well adapted to the sometimes harsh climatic conditions of a mountainous abode, and these are often encountered while exploring the Park on foot, horseback or the comfort of a vehicle.

Black Wildebeest

Young Chacma Baboon

Blesbok in silhouette

Eland

Grey Rhebuck

Golden Gate’s rangers have beautiful horses with which to patrol

Red Hartebeest

Young Springbok

Black Wildebeest

Herd of eland on a mountain slope

Golden Gate’s rangers have beautiful horses with which to patrol

Red Hartebeest on the run

Black-backed Jackal

Glen Reenen is one of six SANParks-managed establishments offering accommodation to visitors at Golden Gate. On this trip we spent four nights in cottage 27, which has a lovely view from its veranda of the Mushroom Rocks and the glen from which the camp takes its name.

Mushroom Rocks from Unit 27 at Glen Reenen in the Golden Gate Highlands National Park

Cottage 27, Glen Reenen Rest Camp, Golden Gate Highlands National Park, March 2019

Golden Gate Photographer

Glen Reenen must have the most beautiful fuel station anywhere!

Glen Reenen

Glen Reenen Cottage 26

View from Glen Reenen on a misty morning

Glen Reenen Panorama

Golden Gate lies about 400km south of Pretoria. Our favourite route to the Park is over Sasolburg, Heilbron, Bethlehem and Clarens, though the quickest option is probably via Harrismith and the N3-highway.

Our favourite route to Golden Gate, via Sasolburg, Heilbron, Petrus Steyn and Bethlehem, a distance of about 400km from Pretoria (map drawn with Google Maps)

From Golden Gate we made our way to Royal Natal National Park in the uKhahlamba Drakensberg Park, and we’ll be sharing some pictures from there in following posts.

A Wet Welcome to Giant’s Castle

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We’ve arrived to a wet, cloudy and cool welcome at the final destination of our autumn holidays in the Drakensberg: The Giant’s Castle Game Reserve in the uKhahlamba Drakensberg Park.

Gate into Giant’s Castle Reserve

Giant’s Castle, Unit 7, uKhahlamba Drakensberg Park, March 2019

View from unit 7 at Giant’s Castle

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