Central Kalahari Game Reserve
Expert Reviews (11)
Botswana Parks
Brian is an award winning travel writer, author of safari books and regular contributor to magazines such as BBC Wildlife and Travel Africa.
6 people found this review helpful.
Botswana’s bountiful desert
The Central Kalahari is no ordinary desert. Its endless sands and fossil dunes are buried under a shaggy pelt of grass and scrub and it is only the heat and lack of water that have made it one of Africa’s most unforgiving habitats. All through the long hot dry season this huge reserve – it’s roughly the same size as New Mexico – suffers under the burning sun. Then the rains come, falling from December to March, transforming the Kalahari into a carpet of greenery pulsating with life and colour, with wild flowers and monarch butterflies, korhaans and goshawks and noisy flocks of plum-coloured starlings. The season usually lasts well into April and is by far the best time to be here. This is when huge herds of gemsbok and springbok are drawn to areas such as Deception Valley where the best of the game is to be found, including cheetah, brown hyena and magnificent black-maned Kalahari lions. For the best take on this magical place read Cry of the Kalahari by Mark and Delia Owens, who spent seven years camping out in one of the acacia islands that are such a feature of Deception Valley’s glorious grasslands.
Alan is a travel writer and author of over 20 Lonely Planet guidebooks, including the guides to Southern Africa and Zambia & Malawi.
4 people found this review helpful.
A desert that surprises with wildlife
This enormous area is a real treat for fans of arid environments. Even if your headed into the delta, a night or two down here makes for a great contrast. In the Dry season the searingly hot temperatures see man and beast alike retreat into the shade, restricting activities to the early morning and late afternoon. But perhaps most surprising is the number and variety of wildlife. There are plenty of desert-adapted animals such as springbok and oryx (gemsbok), and also blue wildebeest, southern giraffe with their dark, burnt- looking colouring, greater kudu, steenbok and, of course, the Kalahari lion. These magnificent lions – males with stunning black manes – could often be heard roaring around our camp at night. And it’s a sound that once you’ve heard you will surely never forget. A drive out onto Tau Pan was memorable for the bat-eared foxes and African wildcat lurking in the bushes. The pan makes a great spot for a sundowner as you can see for miles while you enjoy a cold drink with the blood-red sun dipping below the horizon.
Emma is an award-winning travel writer for Rough Guides, National Geographic Traveller, Travel Africa magazine and The Independent.
4 people found this review helpful.
Botswana’s beautiful, semi-arid heartlands
Famous for its dark-maned lions and for being the second largest protected area in Africa (after the Selous in Tanzania), the Central Kalahari Game Reserve is little visited compared to Botswana’s smaller northern parks and reserves. Its sweeping landscapes, which are the homelands of Botswana’s San Bushmen, cover an area of over 50,000 square kilometres. I found it a thrilling place to be just after the rains, when the plains are softened by fresh new grass, attracting wildebeest, gemsboks, springboks and their predators – but remarkably few tourists.
As well as the larger carnivores, you have a reasonable chance of spotting honey badgers and bat-eared foxes here. Birdwatchers can scan the grasslands, trees and skies for heavyweights including black korhaans, pallid harriers and the chunkiest of them all, the kori bustard.
Mike is an award-winning wildlife writer, former editor of Travel Zambia magazine and author of the Bradt Guide to Southern African Wildlife.
2 people found this review helpful.
Endless Space & Seasonal Plenty
Botswana’s Central Kalahari Game Reserve (often abbreviated to CKGR) covers a staggering 52,800km2, making it Africa’s second largest national park. With this amount of space – it’s larger than the Netherlands – you might expect crowds of safari-goers. In fact, this is one of the least developed of Africa’s great reserves, with only two permanent lodges inside, a sprinkling of private lodges outside, and a limited road network. This partly explains why it is comparatively little visited, seldom featuring in any ‘top 10’ safari lists. Another reason, however, is that wildlife here is both specialised and seasonal, which means safari operators cannot guarantee the same spectacular numbers and variety found elsewhere in Botswana.
For the serious wildlife enthusiast and wilderness-lover, however, any visit is special. The park’s open terrain comprises ancient sand dunes carpeted with undulating grassland and scrub. Obvious topographical features are few, save for several fossilised river valleys, with their associated stands of larger trees such as camelthorns, and a scattering of salt pans. For much of the year this is a parched landscape – officially a semi-desert – and large mammals are thin on the ground. Come the December-to-April summer rains, however, the grasslands burst into growth, producing a carpet of flowers and drawing large herds for the fresh grazing, notably of springbok and oryx, plus smaller numbers of blue wildebeest, red hartebeest and eland. The numbers today do not rival the vast aggregations of yesteryear, before veterinary cordon fences disrupted Botswana’s key migration routes. Nonetheless, game viewing can be impressive, especially around the Deception Valley area towards the north. The herbivores draw plentiful large predators, including good numbers of lion and cheetah, plus leopard, spotted hyena, occasional wild dog and elusive brown hyena – the last of these the subject of the celebrated ‘Cry of the Kalahari’, by US scientists Mark and Delia Owens, which did much to put this reserve on the visitor map. Other large mammals include small numbers of giraffe and greater kudu, while wandering zebra and elephant may enter the park from the north.
During the Dry season, large mammals are more scattered. But the CKGR has plenty more to offer – from smaller predators, such as black-backed jackal, bat-eared fox, yellow mongoose and suricate, to a rich spectrum of birdlife, including sandgrouse, coursers, bustards and other species typical of arid country, plus raptors such as secretary bird and pale chanting goshawk. You will also find impressive biodiversity at ground level, from ground beetles to barking geckos, and mind-boggling stargazing at night. Guests at some lodges may have an opportunity to meet some of the indigenous San people, for whom the Kalahari has long been home. Controversy persists about the enforced resettlement of this community outside the park. Nonetheless, organised interactions offer a fascinating insight into their ancient hunter-gatherer lifestyle.
My single visit to the CKGR was during April, at the end of the rains. Wildlife was prolific, highlights including an entire morning following a pair of hunting cheetah, with no other vehicle in sight, plus excellent encounters with brown hyena, a confiding African wildcat and a lanner falcon hunting finch flocks. The immense views were inspiring – and enhanced by a sense that I was barely scratching the surface.
Stephen is a travel writer and avid conservationist whose work appears in prestigious magazines such as Africa Geographic and Travel Africa.
2 people found this review helpful.
Cry of the Kalahari
The Central Kalahari, ‘land of thirst’, is a parched wilderness and primeval landscape of sand, stone, grasslands and thorn-scrub. Peppered with the ubiquitous oryx and echoing nightly with the primordial roars of the king of the African savannah, this iconic desert dreamscape is like no other place on earth. Similar in size to Denmark, the wide-open arid expanses of the Central Kalahari Game Reserve are epic in scale and a favourite off-the-radar safari haunt of mine.
Encompassing the lion’s share of central Botswana, the 52,800km2 Central Kalahari is one of Africa’s largest and most remote game reserves. Set beneath gigantic desert skies, the near-endless expanse of arid wilderness is home to wildlife, wilderness and the last few remaining clans of indigenous San (bushmen) on earth. Although the area was opened to tourism back in the 1990s, its off-the-beaten-track location, unforgiving environment and limited infrastructure have preserved a genuine wilderness feel. With the exception of a couple of tourist camps in and around Deception Valley, the park remains truly wild and chances are the iconic big black-maned lions are the only other ‘inhabitants’ you’ll encounter during your desert safari.
Dale is a multi-award-winning writer and photographer with more than 500 published magazine articles featured in magazines such as National Geographic, BBC Wildlife, Travel Africa, and CNN Travel.
Endless Openness & Very Big Skies
I’ve been numerous times to the enormous 53,000km2 Central Kalahari Game Reserve, and it never fails to have a profound impact on me. One cannot help but feel tiny and insignificant in such a vast wilderness.
Mostly flat, mostly brown, open, and devoid of trees, this gargantuan semi-desert grassland is silent, serene, and very, very special – particularly if you’re the type of person who likes solitude and the feeling of being a million miles from absolutely anywhere.
Although the reserve is not intensely game-rich, since there are no permanent natural water sources, you can still expect to see a fair amount of wildlife, including some unusual animals such as bat-eared foxes, meerkats, oryx, and honey badgers. The Kalahari lions, a distinct subspecies, are famous for their thick black manes. To wake up on a chilly Kalahari evening to the sound of lions roaring around your campsite is both exhilarating and unnerving.
If you're up for it, a 4x4 self-drive safari through the CKGR is the thrill of a lifetime. I have done it several times and loved the fact that you must be 100% self-sufficient, bringing everything with you; kitchen sink included. However, for those who prefer some creature comforts, several upmarket lodges are located within the park, many of which maintain year-round ‘pumped’ waterholes and are therefore more attractive to animals. Deception Valley and Tau Pan are two such locations.
For most of the year, the CKGR will be a dry sea of caramel-coloured grasslands, but go there during the unpredictable ‘wet’ season (November to March) and you might just witness plains of emerald green and a profusion of pretty little flowers.
Philip is an acclaimed travel writer and author of many guidebooks, including the Bradt guides to Uganda, Tanzania, Kenya and South Africa.
The Great Thirstland
This 52,800 sq km tract of arid Kalahari sands is Africa’s largest protected area, though it exists as much to protect the fragile semi-desert habitat as for the sparsely populated wildlife that concentrates seasonally in Deception Valley, which was incised by four fossil rovers. Mu only visit to this reserve was comically unrepresentative, as something like half the average annual rainfall fell in the space of three days, transforming the flat sandy plains to grassy swamps where the most common wildlife appeared to be the outsized African bullfrog. More normally, you could expect to see a range of dry mammals including oryx, eland, greater kudu, red hartebeest and possibly lion, brown hyena and cheetah. Dry country birds are also well represented. The area is of cultural interest as one of the last places inhabited by Bushman hunter-gatherers, whose activities are officially restricted within the reserve, but who still practice their ancient lifestyle in several neighbouring private reserves.
Ariadne is a renowned African wildlife photographer whose work is featured in many well-known guidebooks and magazines.
An expansive desert waiting to be explored by any nature-loving adventure seekers
This is probably the wildest place in Southern Africa. This huge desert area is very undeveloped and venturing inside feels like a real adventure. In this arid terrain, desert antelopes like gemsbok and springbok are common. The usual predators like lion, cheetah, wild dog and spotted hyena are present and you might also see some of the more elusive desert specials like bat-eared fox and brown hyena.
Birding is remarkably good with raptors being abundant. Unlike most game reserves, the best time to see wildlife is in the rainy season as animals disperse when the pans dry up. I didn’t see a lot of game on my trip, but the feeling of remoteness and adventure is what it is all about and game viewing might be a little bit hit and miss and very seasonal.
Safari Tours to Central Kalahari GR
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![7-Day Botswana and Victoria Falls Luxury Tour]()
7-Day Botswana and Victoria Falls Luxury Tour
$5,151 to $5,868 pp (USD)
Botswana & Zimbabwe: Private tourLuxuryLodge & Tented Camp
You Visit: Maun (Start), Central Kalahari GR, Okavango Delta, Victoria Falls, Victoria Falls Airport (End)
Wayfairer Travel
4.8/5 – 172 Reviews
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![10-Day Best of Botswana - Kalahari to Delta Fly-in Safari]()
10-Day Best of Botswana - Kalahari to Delta Fly-in Safari
$13,286 pp (USD)
Botswana: Private tourLuxury+Tented Camp
You Visit: Maun (Start), Central Kalahari GR, Moremi GR (Okavango Delta), Okavango Delta, Maun (End)
Viatu
5.0/5 – 64 Reviews
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![4-Day Central Kalahari Game Reserve and Nxai Pan]()
4-Day Central Kalahari Game Reserve and Nxai Pan
$1,714 pp (USD)
Botswana: Private tourBudgetCamping
You Visit: Maun (Start), Central Kalahari GR, Nxai Pan NP, Maun (End)
Shipungo Safari & Tours
4.9/5 – 83 Reviews
