Mokala National Park - A gem of semi-arid savannah

 

Situated only 20 kilometers south of Kimberley, the Mokala NP is the newest of the South African National Parks.

It has 3 of the Big 5 African mammals, but it's primary focus is the rare antelope of Southern Africa.

This image is taken looking south-west over the open grasslands of the Lilydale section towards the dolerite hills and bushveld of the Mosu section. 

Note the red kalahari sand in the foreground.

On my first full day in the park I had wonderful sightings in the grasslands.......

a solitary Gemsbok (Oryx)

 

Roan Antelope

 

I spent some time at the lookout point over this waterhole in the middle of the grasslands, and had a herd of Eland antelope run past, without pausing, and then this small group of Tsessebe run down to the water.

 Most of the summer rainfall areas of South Africa have had a really good season this year and the grasslands were lush with most of the antelope looking fat and in good condition.

Eland

Tsessebe

Later in the morning I went south-west to the bushveld and saw many more tsessebe, giraffe, springbok, zebra, warthog and so on.

I also got a punctured tyre!! - the camel thorn trees in this part of the world have vicious thorns!!

Tsessebe

Tsessebe female and calves

Plains zebra and a midday drink

 

On day 2, after getting my tyre fixed at the nearby little settlement of Modderrivier, I had another great day in Mokala. 

This time I went meandering through the dolerite hills and valleys, which had abundant game, and then on west to the far side of Mokala, seeing more game in the flat, lush, thorn tree park lands.

Warthog close to camp

Buffalo sheltering from the heat

A herd of springbok coming down to drink.

Red hartebeest

Plains zebra

Gemsbok (Oryx)

Giraffe

 

I would definitely like to visit Mokala again, and perhaps stay in the other rest camp, Mosu, which is located in the hilly southern section.

I can also recommend Lilydale camp where I stayed this time. It's on the high bank above the Riet River and has glorious views. I include below, the view from my chalet's deck at 3 different times of the day.

Early evening and sundowner time

 Clear skies, and my first ever attempt at photographing the stars!

Dawn on my last morning

 

There had been some distant wildfires the previous day, so a little smoke in the atmosphere produced these wonderful colours the next morning.

This little gem of a park is well worth visiting. The official website recommends a minimum of 2 nights, but I spent 3 nights and had no time to get bored. 

So on your next road-trip between the south and north, or west and east of South Africa, plan to stop here for a few nights.

Escaping to Kruger (3) - And back south again

 

Levaillant's cuckoo

For Parts 1 & 2 of this trip to Kruger please click on these links...

 The Journey North 

Birding in the Parfuri

On our last morning at the Eco-training  camp, and for much of the rest of the day journeying back south to Shingwedzi - it rained, rained and rained.

The animals were all drenched and often looking "miserable, but life in the bush goes on.

 

 

Fortunately for me, the rain was not so hard that I had to always keep my car windows closed.

I got damp, but, hey, it's summer in the north-eastern lowveld, so I didn't get too cold.

 What struck me, was how another week into summer, with a bit of rain and more sunshine, the bush had generally got another 100% greener. I hope my pics can show you how much.

 

 

At Dzundwini Hill (near Punda Maria) I spent over half an hour enjoying the giraffe, impala and elephant feeding all around me.

 

These young waterbuck were a little far to get really great pics of, but I really loved the lush vegetation backdrop.

 

 

Being early December, there were impala lambs everywhere and not always sheltering away under the bushes.

 

 

 

Another 1/2 hour stop was with this troop of baboons and a small herd of nyala (females and youngsters) sheltering under some of the tall riverine trees along the Mphongolo River road.

They all looked so wet and cold!

 

 

 

On the second day of the journey south, I was based in Shingwedzi Camp, and I only took one, relatively short, mid-day game drive along the river. The weather had cooled down even further so there weren't a lot of large animals out and about, but I got some great birding.

 

These are just the birds that decided to perch in the bushes quite close to me,

Woodland kingfisher

White-fronted bee-eater

African hoopoe

Day 3, found me traveling south to Letaba Rest Camp, and although it remained overcast, the rain had stopped.

 In the morning I saw not much at all, except for this stunning Water monitor lizard at the bird hide.

 

By early afternoon I had hit Nshawu vlei which is a beautiful open area stretching over 20km north to south draining the water run off from the Lebombo range on the eastern border (of Kruger and South Africa). At this time of the year it has sweet, short, green grass, water and lots of animals!

 

 It was a long day on the road. and I was very thankful to have my favourite hut and view of the Letaba River to relax with a glass of wine. A big bonus was the sun breaking through and lighting up the river!

There are impala, waterbuck & birds in view!

As often happens, the weather was clear and sunny on my last morning drive out of Kruger. Of course the temperatures and humidity were exponentially higher.

This old buffalo interrupted his feasting for a brief moment to eyeball me...

It was an amazing trip to Kruger, the first since the pandemic really hit us, and until I can return to working (on safari with clients) in the Kruger I will try to do trips like this more often.

Lockdown on an African Game Farm

When South Africa's initial hard pandemic lockdown eased slightly in May 2020, to allow travel for workers in an expanded list of essential sectors, my cousins were allowed to take occupancy of their game farm, and a few weeks later I joined them to help them start transition from a private game farm to a semi-luxury bush and wildlife destination.

So in the mild mid-winter of the north-eastern lowveld of South Africa I spent hours every day walking the roads and trails of this beautiful piece of Africa.

My "work" consisted of:- noting the mammals and birds I saw, heard and/or tracked; identifying and noting interesting trees and plants; naming roads, trails, and places of interest etc. etc.

This relatively short break from the city kept me mostly sane during the insanity of 2020.

 Here are some of my pics..... 

Walking on the farm

Taking a lunch break

An interesting collection of spoor

Some of the wildlife on the farm. There are also zebra, wildebeest, impala, duiker, mongoose, snakes, squirrels.............

Nyala male

Late afternoon from the viewing deck

"Toffee" the friendly eland

On Holiday in Kruger

Our first elephant at Sable Dam

I've only been "on holiday" in Kruger National Park a couple of times in the last decade, although I have racked up well over a 1,000 days working in or close to the park, so it was a real pleasure to organise an 8 day trip for an old and dear friend of mine who desperately needed her "bush fix" after 8 months in chilly Canada.

Going on safari late summer is always a chancy affair and the weather forecast was quite gloomy, with lots of rain due for at least the first half of the week.

Nevertheless, we set off on a cool, wet morning for the long drive to Letaba Rest Camp in the northern half of Kruger.

We were lucky for the first 24 hours inside Kruger, just scattered thunder showers with hot steamy sunshine in between. We saw the full moon rise over the Letaba River and enjoyed red wine from our verandah. We couldn't afford to stay up too late as we were joining the morning Bush Walk at 5am the next day.

We were treated to a spectacular sunrise on the drive to the walking area - and the old saying "red in the morning, shepherd's warning" proved to be right on the nail later that day.........

Our walk was significantly more rugged than normal as the surrounding area had had masses of rain in the previous 24 hours and the basalt plains around Letaba were sticky mud. Instead we walked in the sandstone ridges west of the camp and had to ford this stream (usually dry) twice. Both C and I had an unexpected dip in the river on the first crossing! Fortunately no pictures ;)

White-fronted bee eater panting in the heat

Cape buffalo in thick mopani bush

 Game drives later in the day, were very, very hot, turning into lowering grey skies and we didn't see a large number of animals.

The bird life close to the river was entertaining though, and we were lucky to find a herd of buffalo in the thick mopani bush heading north.

We managed to get back to camp before the skies opened and a massive storm battered the camp for an hour or more.

Later that night we were woken by another storm with thunder and an absolute deluge of rain.....

We heard the next day that the central/northern lowveld had between 150 and 200mm of rain overnight.






It took us a while the next  morning, as we were packing up to leave, to realise that the Letaba River was in full flood. The visuals and sound of the surging waters were stunning.
  
Before we headed south we took more pictures from the high-level bridge over the river, and you can see for yourself what 12 hours and some heavy rain can do to a typical Kruger river......


Satara was our next stop for 2 nights and although the rain let up for a few brief spells, it was WET.

That didn't stop us going out looking for wildlife, and exclaiming over more flooding rivers and waterholes that had burst their banks.

A brief respite from rain on the central eastern plains of Kruger

Nsemani Dam - overflowing it's banks

Wildebeest calves frolicking in the drizzle

Cape Vulture trying to dry it's feathers

As we headed south to Lower Sabie Rest camp, the weather outlook was brightening, with the temperatures starting to soar again.

The long drive was relatively quiet overall, but we still had some exceptional sightings, including our first leopard - a youngster trying to ignore the excited sightseers and sleep in an Apple-leaf tree.......

As always on safari, we were up before dawn the next morning so that we could cover as much ground as possible in the wildlife-rich south eastern Kruger. The forecast was for a very hot day so we knew game sightings would fall off dramatically from 8am onwards.

A quick detour to view the dawn over the Sabie River.

We followed this pack of African Wild Dog for quite some way. That giraffe in the distance was rather concerned, but ultimately the Wild Dog ignored it.

 After a quick picnic breakfast at Crocodile Bridge we headed back to camp, and with the heat we saw few animals apart from elephant, impala and zebra.  The clearing, blue skies with sunshine on the lush green/gold grass made the drive a delight.

Great White Egret

 Bird action at Sunset Dam














We were scheduled on the 8pm Night Drive, and after a much needed siesta, and with the weather so beautiful we had our first braai overlooking the Sabie River.

Over the whole trip I think we saw just 2 lion, one sleepy in the grass near Satara, and a young male lion walking ahead of us on the night drive. This time of the year is really not the best time to look for lion!!


So, on to our second last day in Kruger. We moved from Lower Sabie to Skukuza Rest Camp for the last night, and we were starting to get a little tired after 6 days of driving and looking for animals.

A sleepy mother baboon, with active babies (not all hers) on the river road....











 A big plus in our hot, wet summers are all the reptiles we get to see.....




















We were still to have some of our best sightings of the whole trip:- rhino, hyena, leopard and cheetah in the last 24 hours.........

Sunrise on our last morning.... and an active clan of Spotted Hyena making their way back to their den.

We we lucky enough to have all 3 of the largest spotted predators that we saw on that last game drive, walk close past our car!!

Leopard

Cheetah

So that was our Kruger holiday, and a really great break before the current crisis.