Our long weekend at the iSimangaliso Wetland Park has come to an end, but please “stay tuned” in the weeks to come as we’ll share some of our latest experiences from this spectacular world heritage site.
Apart for Cape Vidal and the iSimangaliso Wetland Park, we can’t think of any other place in South Africa (or the world) where you can end a day of fun at the beach with a fantastic sighting of a leopard walking mere centimeters away from your car window. And that’s exactly how our day played out!
Grey-headed gull taking flight at Cape Vidal’s beach
Leopard sighting on the Grassland Loop – 15th June 2015
Today we joined a tour of Lake Saint Lucia aboard the Santa Lucia cruiser, and this low level flypast by an African Fish Eagle was just one of the highlights!
We were the first car into the iSimangaliso Wetland Park through Bhangazi Gate this morning, before sunrise. And this leopard sighting was just one of the day’s highlights!
We’re spending three nights at picturesque Cape Vidal, and can’t wait to experience all that iSimangaliso has in stall for us tomorrow…
Time away from work and school.
Time to allow the warm glow of an African sunset to rejuvenate body and mind.
We’re spending a long weekend in the iSimangaliso Wetland Park!
“Off-Season” is the theme for this week’s WordPress Photo Challenge
The scenic route through the Kgaswane Mountain Reserve, which we visited last weekend. If you’d like to learn more about Kgaswane, have a look at the blogpost we dedicated to this special piece of South Africa yesterday.
The scenic route
“On the way” is the latest theme for the WordPress Photo Challenge
It is hard to imagine a more peaceful mountain retreat than Kgaswane, especially so close to the maddening cities of Johannesburg and Pretoria.
Kgaswane sunrise, taken by Joubert!
Located in the western Magaliesberg mountain range, the Kgaswane Mountain Reserve forms an integral part of the Magaliesberg Protected Environment, an inspiring collaboration between private and state land owners and agencies to protect this beautiful ecosystem from exploitation. Proclaimed in 1967 as the Rustenburg Nature Reserve, incorporating the farm Rietvallei that once belonged to Paul Kruger (legendary president of the Zuid-Afrikaansche Republiek), Kgaswane today covers an area of 5,300 hectares and is managed by the North West Parks and Tourism Board.
The reserve is a popular hiking destination, with two overnight hikes; the Summit Route of 25km and the Baviaanskrans Route of 20km, each trail with two overnight hutted camps accommodating twelve hikers at a time. For day visitors, the 5km Peglerae Trail and 2km Vlei Ramble (which incorporates a bird-viewing hut overlooking the marshlands below the main visitor centre) is an excellent introduction to Kgaswane’s varied topography and habitats, with wonderfully shaded picnic sites available at the visitor centre. While the road network may be limited, it is tarred and in good condition, allowing for easy game and bird-viewing from vehicles and mountain bikes. There’s three spectacular viewing points along the way into the mountains from the entrance gate. Joubert and I spent a night on one of the twenty-two spacious camping sites and found the ablution facilities well maintained and entirely adequate (just remember to bring your own bath and sink plugs). There are no powerpoints at the camping sites but each site has a braai (barbeque) stand and picnic table and there’s a communal freezer available in the scullery. Best of all, there’s little to no cellphone reception in the camping area so no telemarketers can interfere with your rest and relaxation! Accommodation is also available in a self-catering cottage and two rondavels that sleep a combined 14 people and a group camp that can house up to 50 people in dormitory-style.
The Magaliesberg dominates the scenery at Kgaswane with rocky ridges, stacked boulders and deep ravines. The vlei (marsh) on the plateau is the largest in the Magaliesberg, and an important catchment area.
The reserve hosts good, though skittish, populations of a variety of game animals; we encountered black-backed jackal, baboon, warthog, eland, red hartebeest, plains zebra, oribi, reedbuck, blesbok, impala, kudu and waterbuck. The reserve’s birdlife is even more diverse, with 320 species recorded, including a breeding colony of endangered Cape vultures. Kgaswane’s most prized residents are the herds of the magnificent and rare sable antelope. It was here in the Magaliesberg that these regal animals first came to the attention of the scientific community, thanks to explorer Major Sir William Cornwallis Harris, in the 1830’s. But unlike Harris, we were not lucky enough to find the sable on our first visit to Kgaswane. And that’s just one of the excuses we’ll use to visit again, soon…
Kgaswane Mountain Reserve lies on the outskirts of the city of Rustenburg, in the North West Province, an easy 3km from the R24 offramp on the N4 highway and 134km from our home in Pretoria.
Pretoria to Kgaswane
(map drawn with Google Maps)
Joubert and I have just finished unpacking the car, after returning from a weekend camping at Kgaswane Mountain Reserve, at Rustenburg in the North West Province. Set high in the Magaliesberg range, the reserve abounds in magnificent scenery and interesting formations like this stack of boulders that looks almost like a toppled fortress. Of course, we’ll tell you all about Kgaswane in an upcoming blogpost.
“Broken” is the theme for this week’s WordPress Photo Challenge.
This morning, JacarandaFM – one of South Africa’s biggest radio stations – aired a humorous sketch based on one of our most hair-raising wildlife encounters and the events that followed in their breakfast show’s weekly “Story of my life” segment.
Unfortunately for most of our friends here at de Wets Wild the story is mostly in Afrikaans, our home language, but perhaps you’ll be able to catch the gist of it, which involves a swear word slipping out in an unguarded moment and being stored away in a little boy’s memory bank for later use…
Click here to listen to the piece.
Vir al ons Afrikaanse vriende, julle sal verstaan dat die “kru taal” juis is wat die storietjie so snaaks maak!
Two of the three rhinos that caused the swearing at Ithala Game Reserve…
A tiny vervet monkey feeling secure in his mother’s embrace, at Skukuza in the Kruger National Park.
“Enveloped” is this week’s WordPress Photo Challenge theme
DeWetsWild 