Our next stop after Alldays was the Mapungubwe NP. This park forms part the Vhembe Biosphere Reserve and is another IBA in Limpopo. We have been looking forward to this for a while, especially as everyone that has been there seems to have only good things to say about it.
We were initially slightly disappointed though! The park is divided into two sections with most of the points of interest in the eastern section and a major portion of the accommodation in the western section, specifically no campsite on the eastern side. The distance between the two sections is about 20km but takes approximately an hour to cover due to the poor road condition. The other problem is the lack of signage on the western side. If it wasn’t for the GPS we would still be trying to get back to camp! The campsite however is great. We secured a spot under a huge Nyala tree and it felt like we were the only people there, even though there were several other groups at the time.
The surrounds were beautiful. The bush/canopy was shrouded in a mauve mantle thanks to the Apple-Leaf trees that were blossoming. They were everywhere!
On the first day we spent time traversing the western section where the campsite was. There are no road markings and the bird hide was in serious need of repair. All the damage was apparently caused by the huge floods that happened in January of this year. It was nevertheless interesting.
The park borders on the Limpopo River, i.e. Botswana, and sadly large sections along the river still have the old dilapidated security fencing (serving no purpose) and other reminders of a past era. Surely this should have been removed by now, as this is a transfrontier park?
On the second day we travelled to the eastern section via the Den Staat road. This road was also washed away during the floods and is also not yet repaired. It made for an interesting 4×4 experience!
We had arranged to meet Wendy Collinson from EWT and had a long conversation over brunch. She is currently involved in a Road Kill Project and we will be assisting by recording road kills using an app that was developed for the purpose. The android app can be downloaded from http://prismsw.com/roadwatch/
After brunch we visited the Museum at the Interpretive Centre. This and the chat with Wendy made us realise that we should not be expecting a ‘Kruger’ experience. This is a cultural experience and we found the information very interesting indeed. It is all about the history of the area and early civilizations that existed.
Next stop was the confluence. But 100 metres after leaving the cultural centre we passed a little dam and here we saw a stunning number of water birds. We even witnessed a kill!
We did not stay too long but decided to return the next day. The other points of interest were calling. En-route to the confluence we stopped and visited the Tree Top Hide. This is an elevated boardwalk through a section of elephant-protected gallery forest and was really stunning! We even saw a Saddle-billed Stork in the river bed! This is a threatened species and one of the trigger species for the IBA.
Next POI was the confluence. This is where the Limpopo and the Shashe Rivers come together and forms the borders between South Africa, Botswana and Zimbabwe. There are lookout points towards the east, west and main confluence areas and the round trip was about a 1km walk. The wind was howling and it was really quite cool, but what an experience!
When we returned from the walk a lady approached us and asked if we would take her on a 4×4 route because their car was not 4×4. No problem, and the next moment Geniva, her sister and 2 young children all piled into our small little Jimny and off we went. It turned out that Geniva is a school teacher, teaching Life Orientation to matric learners in Polokwane. We saw a number of animals (elephant, baboon, bush buck, zebra, kudu) on the drive which they had never seen before and we were able to provide information and background to questions she had. She commented on the very large rats that they saw in the rocky area around the picnic spot. It took a split second for us to realise that what she saw were hyraxes (dassies) and happily we could enlighten her about that as well!
The next day we spent some time in the car park outside the main gate which was the only place where we had cell phone reception in order to post our previous blogs. The we headed straight for the dam near the Cultural Centre.
Along with the Marsh Sandpiper which we id’d the previous day, and a host of other water birds, we now saw a pair of near-threatened Greater Painted Snipe doing what seemed to be a mating dance!
When we eventually tore ourselves away we proceeded through a part of the park we did not do the previous day. Shortly afterwards we spotted the threatened Martial Eagle.
Early the next morning we went for a drive through the Gallery Forest. This section of the forest is protected from elephants by electrified cables installed at about a man’s shoulder height. The idea behind this is to monitor the effect on the trees by excluding elephants. We saw three White-Backed vultures and heard and saw two Giant Eagle owls. The forest was simply alive with birds, squirrels, monkeys and antelope, all out foraging in the early morning. There were also leopard spoor on the damp road (it drizzled on-and-off during the previous night).
After 4 days in the park we admitted to each other that the park has actually grown on us and we ended up thoroughly enjoying our stay! We saw many more animal and bird species than we anticipated and the trees were magnificent.
the pics are all fabulous, keep them coming! 🙂