Sunday 19 June 2011

Crooks Corner at last

After our stay at magical Tzendze the next stop was Shingwedzi, a favourite from last year.  Once again we had an excellent site on the fence, and were rewarded by this civet cat which came each night looking for the small birds that fall foul of the electric fence each day.  The civet is a strange looking cat, weighing about 10 kg and seeming to have been assembled from parts left over from other animals.  The drives around Shingwedzi are especially good 
with beautiful riverine forest and spectacular trees, and abundant game and birds.  The S56 from Babalala Picnic site back to Shingwedzi was one of the best  with a sighting of a Verreaux's (giant) Eagle Owl the icing on that day's cake.
 We left Shingwedzi a day early and travelled up to our last camp at Punda Maria.  Once again we landed a great site on the fence, 30m from the bird hide and with a great view of the waterhole.   
There has been a constant procession of wonderful birds and animals to keep us enthralled.  One of the best visits was on the first night when between 30 to 40 elephant which came to drink.  There are no 'streetlights' in this camp, but it was one night away from full moon, and the sight of the grey giants ghosting along in the moonlight was one which we will remember always.
 The drive up to Punda Maria took us past a huge herd of buffalo, who were all very skittish.  When we finally got past them, we saw the reason why, these two gorgeous lionesses were stalking them

with intent!  Another memorable sighting was the female Bateleur Eagle which landed in the muddy waterhole in front of us and spent about half an hour there.  This was the first time we have seen one on the ground for any length of time.  They are a common sight in the air, but much harder to see on the ground.  They are a lot bigger than they seem in the pic, being about 70cm long and about 3kg in weight.  On Wednesday 15th we watched the lunar eclipse, then on Friday 17th it was off to Crooks Corner.  Another lovely drive with lots of spectacular baobab trees along the way.  Photos dont do these giants justice, as one cant get out of ones vehicle to stand next to one to give a sense of scale.   We had a breakfast picnic at the Pafuri picnic site then drove to Crooks Corner to be photographed with the mighty Limpopo behind us, Zimbabwe in the left background and Mocambique to the right (across the river that is!)
Tomorrow we start the long haul home, and the final entry with some last thoughts will come from Port Elizabeth.

Thursday 16 June 2011

Tzendze - yet another special place

On June 9th we set off from Letaba for our two night stay at Tzendze, not quite knowing what to expect.  The rest of the party extended their stay at Letaba, planning to meet up with us at Shingwedzi on the Saturday.
 Tzendze has to be one of the jewels in the Kruger crown, and it is kept polished to a brilliant shine by the amazing and delightful Roger and Elina, both of whom have been at Tzendze from the beginning.  (and, no, they are not a couple)
Tzendze began about 5 years ago, as the satellite camp to Mopani, 10 miles further north.  Mopani has no campsite, and so Tzendze came about.  Both are designed as low-impact facilities.  At Mopani the almost 100 bungalows are blended sympathetically into the surrounding landscape and are not visible from the road.
 Tzendze has no electricity, with solar power providing the lights in bathrooms and kitchens, and gas heats the water.  The individual camp sites are spaced well apart and nestled into the existing vegetation.
There is no gate guard and campers are asked to observe standard park opening and closing times, and the (very heavy!) gates have to be opened and closed each time one passes through.  The peace, silence and tranquillity have to be experienced to be believed.  The star display at night is incredible as there's no ambient light.
 We found game hard to come by during our time there, although there is a resident leopard, and lion and cheetah were both around.  That didn't really matter though, as the place was magic enough in its own right.
I was fortunate to spot some open-billed storks in a nearby pond - not a good pic, but proof of sighting!
 The real stars of Tzendze though, are Roger and Elina.  Their welcome is warm and gracious, and the camp is run to a very high standard.  They make their final 'rounds' at about 6 in the evening to check that everyone is happy, Roger with his file tucked under his arm in case he needs to record anything.  Kruger could do with a few dozen Rogers and Elinas!
Tzendze is the kind of place that automatically makes one lower ones voice in order to better able to hear the silence! It is also strikingly different from the older model KNP camp which imposes itself on the lanscape.  Mopani and Tzendze have clearly been designed to slip into place as seamlessly as possible.

Anyone who noticed the rookie error in a previous blog in which I identified a nyala as a tsessebe, just know I stand corrected, so you can all stop tsk-ing!

Sunday 12 June 2011

Satara and Letaba

 On Sunday May 29th we left Skukuza and travelled up to Satara.  Once again we had a lovely site on the fence, although not as much game passed by as the watercourse to the southwest had dried up, but still lovely and tranquil to just sit and stare out at the veld.  Game drives around Satara are always very productive with big herds of plains animals, and therefore lots of predators.  There were many good lion sightings, unfortunately not by us though!
The rest of the party went on a night game drive on the Tuesday night, which we elected to miss as we were going out to Manyeleti the next day.  The drive was notable mainly for Cathy losing her glasses, luckily in their hard case, when she stood up to operate the spotlight.  After several trips out over the next couple of days, Bruce finally spotted the glasses, and on their way home they saw these 3 beautiful cheetah and sent us a text.  Well, off we rushed for our first cheetah sighting.

First time I had seen them in the wild and what a treat it was.  They are more gorgeous than I expected and we were able to watch for about 15 mins.  Then they lay down in the long grass and became totally invisible.  Also at Satara I was completely fascinated by the resident tiny (15 cm) African Scops Owl, which sits in a tree outside Reception and sleeps during the day.  It is just above head height and within arms reach, but hundreds of people walk past it every day and don't see it, and the owl is quite unconcerned.

The following Sunday we moved on to Letaba, which has a very scenic riverside setting with a lovely terrace and walkway.  Our best sightings here were this elephant, which although not the biggest in the group, had very long tusks and seemed to be in charge of his little herd.  The other good sighting was of the tsessebe which I saw in the shade of a bush along the river and was very pleased with as there are estimated to be only about 220 in the KNP. 

Equally, there are onlyan estimated 300 cheetah in the Park, so we have been truly fortunate with rare sightings.   
After 4 nights at Letaba, we continued to Tzendze for two nights, the rest opting to remain at Letaba, until meeting up again at Shingwedzi.  By now we were back to 4 caravans, the other 4 having left from Satara to go back to PE.  More of Tzendze later, as it deserves a post all to itself.

Friday 3 June 2011

Manyeleti - Place of Stars

According to Villiers Steyn's excellent article in the March 2011 edition of go! magazine, Manyeleti is Shangaan for 'place of stars' and it is certainly that.  No ambient light and zero pollution must make Manyeleti a stargazers dream. There are a few expensive luxury tented camps in Manyeleti, but African Ivory Routes have two tented camps which are a budget option at R250 pernight for two people.  As we were caravanning at Satara in the KNP it seemed an ideal chance to experience something totally different.  The booking was made and on June 1st off we went as excited as kids on an outing.  We elected to stay at Ndzhaka, in the middle of the reserve, which is on the banks
of a (dry when we were there) river with the tents set among trees and linked by wooden walkways. The feeling of being completely alone, seated at ones campfire, with nothing but complete silence and the odd animal noise, is hard to describe.  We felt completely safe, although apparently I did spend a lot of time saying 'what was that? and 'did you hear that noise'?   
We were looked after by the charming Monica and camp manager Derek, both of whom could not do enough for us - thanks guys.Our expectations were well managed by Villiers's article but for one small thing. The article stated that African Ivory guests are allowed to self-drive in the reserve between sunrise and sunset. This is, according to Derek, not so, as African Ivory attempt to run a low-impact operation, and prefer clients to use the game-drive option.  This is meant to be made clear to prospective guests when booking. We were only allowed to self-drive because we were the only guests that night, so lucky us!  
 The fences between Manyeleti and its neighbours were removed in the 1990s, so game roams freely over a wide area.  We were not fortunate enough to see lion or leopard (must have been dining with the rich and famous next door neighbours !) but saw the other members of the big three.  We also saw grey rhebok and side-striped jackal both of which were new sightings for us.   All in all, a fantastic experience - even if it was 3 degrees C that night!  Ndzhaka is a jewel of a camp and we felt very special and priveliged to have it to ourselves for the night. Our camp chairs were straight out of a movie about the Desert Campaign, and the bucket shower a novelty which we were too frozen to use! So yes, there is some basic maintenenance needed, but take all you think you might need, and be aware that it is a budget operation, and you will be rewarded by a unique and wonderful place, which may not retain that character for much longer - go while you can!