Tag Archives: vacation

Chelmsford Nature Reserve, March 2013

Tall grass and thick mist – a wonderful long-weekend retreat!

Chelmsford_entrance

We recently spent a very relaxing long weekend at one of our favourite small wild places, the beautiful and little-known Chelmsford Nature Reserve in the north-west of Kwazulu-Natal Province.

Chelmsford scenery

Mist rising from Chelmsford Dam

Looking westwards accross Ntshingwayo Dam towards the Drakensberg

Chelmsford scenery

Moon over Chelmsford

Chelmsford scenery

The reserve must have received good rainfall during the summer, as almost the entire area was covered in tall, green grass, which made it difficult to get good sightings (and photographs) of Chelmsford’s star attraction: the oribi, a small and endangered species of antelope.

Chelmsford Oribi

We spent three nights in our comfortable chalet, one of only eight at the Leokop Camp on the bank of the Ntshingwayo Dam. The reserve also offers shady campsites at the dam’s edge, and it is easy to see why so many people enjoy pitching a tent or unhitching their caravan in such an idyllic setting.

Leokop Camp

Sandford Camping Area

Tranquility at Leokop

The reserve doesn’t have any dangerous large animals, allowing visitors to walk or cycle around among the game to their hearts’ content. Plains zebra, blesbok, springbok and black wildebeest were plentiful, and we also had numerous, if fleeting, sightings of smaller animals like the oribi, cape fox, and a number of mongooses.

Blesbok

Plains Zebra

Chelmsford is also a renowned bird-watching destination, and during our stay we ticked of more than 70 feathered species including a variety of raptors.

Wagtail

Yelow-billed Ducks

Ant-eating Chat

Fish Eagle

Blacksmith Lapwing

Egyptian Geese

Bokmakierie

Surrounding a large body of water and with the mornings here in South Africa turning rather chilly now, it wasn’t surprising to find the reserve blanketed in thick fog every morning.

The sun struggling to break through the heavy fog

Blesbok

Spirit Trees

Another misty scene

Zebras in the mist

We’ve always found a visit to Chelmsford to be well worth our while and we will definitely return as often as we possibly can – a resolution our latest visit reaffirmed.

Dewy spider’s web

Dewdrops on spider’s web

Have a look at an earlier blogpost of ours on Chelmsford here, if you’d like to read more of our impressions of this wonderful nature reserve. During our visit, we tried to post a daily photo as well, which you may not have seen yet: 21/03/2013, 22/03/2013 and 23/03/2013.

Colour

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The Bateleur is a medium-sized, and very colourful, eagle. This one was photographed south of Satara, in the Kruger National Park.

Bateleur, Kuger National Park

WordPress’ theme for this week’s photo challenge is colour – have a look at all the entries here.

Overlooked

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This caracal was hiding next to the road in the Oribi Gorge, in Kwazulu-Natal Province – had it’s eyes not reflected in our headlights as we rounded a bend, it would have gone totally unnoticed.

Caracal hiding in the Oribi Gorge

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 “Overlooked“

Distant

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A pair of hadeda ibis wading on a boulder protruding from the Treur River, as it rushes towards the Bourke’s Luck Potholes in the Blyde River Canyon, South Africa (where we were fortunate to spend the Easter Weekend).

Hadeda’s on the Treur River, Bourke’s Luck Potholes

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 “Distant“.

Blyde Canyon 29/03/2013

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We’re spending Easter Weekend in the Blyde River Canyon Nature Reserve in Mpumalanga Province, surrounded by some of the most spectacular scenery imaginable!

Spectacular Blyde River Canyon

We wish you all a blessed Easter!

Reflections

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We took these photos this past weekend at Chelmsford Nature Reserve, in Kwazulu-Natal Province, where we were enjoying a quick getaway.

Do you see the reflection in the Anteating Chat’s eye? Have a closer look – that’s our vehicle from which it was photographed:

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Cars themselves come with factory-fitted reflective devices that can be put to good use in a nature reserve

ChelmsfordReflections4

The Ntshingwayo Dam is at the centre of the Chelmsford Nature Reserve, and of course water is an excellent reflective surface:

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ChelmsfordReflections5

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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 “Reflections“.

Chelmsford 23/03/2013

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Our time at Chelmsford has come to an end far too quickly (as always) and we’ll be heading back to Pretoria tomorrow.

Today’s photo, of the sunrise over Chelmsford this morning, was taken by Joubert (aged 3!)

Chelmsford 22/03/2013

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A misty start to the early morning, ideal for hiking. Later the sun managed to burn off all the fog and we enjoyed a gloriously sunny afternoon.

Chelmsford 21/03/2013

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We’re spending a long weekend at Chelmsford Nature Reserve, in Kwazulu-Natal Province. We’ll try to post a daily picture while we are here and a full report as soon as possible after we return to the city. It’s so nice to be surrounded by nature’s peace and quiet again!

Mopani Rest Camp, Kruger National Park

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Mopani Rest Camp, named for the mopane tree with its butterfly-shaped leaves that dominates the plantlife of the northern Kruger National Park, is located just south of the Tropic of Capricorn. From its hilltop vantage point, the camp offers splendid views over the Pioneer Dam (with a rich aquatic birdlife) and the mopane plains beyond.

Mopani entrance

Mopani bungalow

Mopani has an unfair reputation for not being a very prolific game viewing area of the Kruger Park, mostly because the mopane shrub can get extremely thick and difficult to see through.

Impalas displaying just how thick the mopane’s can get!

However, if you choose your routes carefully, the Mopani area has very much to offer; the best drive is undeniably the circular route made up of the S49, S50 and S143 gravel routes to the east of the camp that skirts the Mooiplaas and Tinhongonyeni waterholes and the Nshawu Vlei (marsh). Mopani, and especially the area around Tinhongonyeni waterhole, is a hotspot for sightings of the rarer antelope and large birds like the kori bustard, ground hornbill, ostrich and secretary bird. In fact, Tinhongonyeni is one of the best waterholes in the entire Kruger National Park for overall game viewing, and a couple of hours there will assuredly be time well spent. Elephant and buffalo thrive in the Mopani area (there’s a herd of buffalo in the vicinity more than 1,000 animals strong) and we’ve had a number of good lion and cheetah sightings in the district.

Buffalo in rainy weather

This buffalo wasn’t overly happy to have his way blocked!

Unhappy elephant!

Eland – a rare sighting in Kruger – at Tinhongonyeni waterhole

Vultures cleaning up the carcass of a tusker that died almost on Mopani’s doorstep

Claiming the road as his own, and who’s going to disagree?

Elephant procession

Lone elephant bull

Giraffe

Kudu bull

This lion gave us a terrible fright, as we stopped right next to him without knowing he’s there (we were watching a herd of tsessebe at that moment)

Lions quenching their early morning thirst just a kilometer from Mopani

Reedbuck are frequently seen in the Nshawu Vlei

Tinhongonyeni waterhole, with three rare antelope in one shot: eland, tsessebe and Liechtenstein’s hartebeest

Tsessebe are seen more frequently near Mopani than anywhere else in the Kruger Park

More tsessebe. Guess where? Tinhongonyeni!

Just south of Mopani, the Shipandani Hide, which overlooks a waterhole in the Tsendze River, offers a very different overnight experience as a single group of guests at a time may occupy the hide between sunset and sunrise.

Shipandani Hide

The neighbours at Shipandani

Mopani is also special to the de Wets for one more reason: it is here, in the glow of a magnificently romantic African sunset, that Marilize and I got engaged!