Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park

Kgalagadi: wonderful experience

Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park has become in last years a cross-border park, that includes part of the territory in Botswana and has a border station to Namibia. You can enter the park from a country and exit it to another one.
The Botswana side is very wild, there are only a few camping sites and is mandatory to drive a 4x4 vehicle. We didn’t go there.
In the South African side there are some rest camps (3 of them with bungalows, the others are smaller with only 4-6 tents), only one of them has a restaurant inside. We spent 6 days in the park, sleeping in 4 different rest camps.
The park is 4 hours drive far from Upington, the only medium-sized cities in the area; to go there you have to drive along a nearly deserted but in good condition road. This means that the park is frequented mainly by South African people or by most motivated among foreign tourist.
The special feature of the park is the natural environment, which is described as “arid savannah” and is very different from other african park’s landscape. There is an expanse of red sand dunes with a little grass and bushes, some trees and only a few waterholes, largely artificial. Wildlife in the park is astonishingly varied, we sighted springbok, hartebeest, wildebeest, jackal, giraffe, lion, oryx, meerkat, mongoose, ground squirrel and many birds, but we weren’t so lucky to sight also cheetah, leopard and eland.
One morning, at dawn, we met one lion, two lionesses and a cub walking along the road, they keep on walking among cars for half an hour. It was so exciting!

Awesome Breathtaking Game Park. The best kept secret in southern Africa.

I went to the park on a Photographic Safari. We had Two vehicles and 10 photographers, with Mellisa and Willie as our guides. The weather was exceptionally cold that year, reching to -10 degrees celcius in the mornings. I stayed at Twee Revieren and at Nossob Camps. Nossob Camp was our main camp and we did daily drives from the camp to the various watering holes and spotted many wild game species during the early morning and late afternoon drives.

Wildlife spotted the Lion, Cheetahs, Leopard, Wildebeest, Gemsbok, Springbok, Meerkats, Jackals, Ostriches, Owls, Eagles, Goshawks, Bee-eaters, Kories.
The desert scenery and the skies are spectacular, especially the quality of the light and the air as this area is not inundated with any form of pollution. The evening skies are clear and the stars shine in the night sky. The Nossob Camp has a hide and a webcam. The hide is well visited by different animals at night, and during the day. We took the self catering camps so we carried our own food and cooked on the site our meals. The little shop is stocked with the bare necessaties and is a little expensive, as they have to cart the supplies in from quite a distance. The Twee Revieren Camp is the main entrance camp and the store is more stocked up with groceries.
Transportation, we had two game vehicles and guides. The game vehicles were perfect for the photography course. One can self drive through the park, but parts of the areas are accesible only via 4x4 vehicles.

Our guides were very knowledgable about the ecosystem and the fauna and flora of the park.

Higlight for me was the spotting of the young male leopard.

Regards
Prakash.

Awesome Kgalagadi, The best kept secret in Southern Africa abundant wildlife, birding, range of acco

The sceneray and the wildlife in is park are spectacular. There is a range of accomodation types to suite every budget. The roads within the park are accesible to all, but some areas you will need a 4x4. The camp I stayed in on the first day was Twee Riveren. The accomodation was comfortable and the self catering chalet was well appointed. Te supply store was adequately stocked. This is your main entrance into the park from the nearest town of Uppington, arriving from Kimberley, JHB, or Bloemfontein, Bethlehem,Harrismith, PMB and Durban.

The weather experiened was unusually cold. The self catering chalets was well appointed to be able to make your own food. I experienced this park as part of a Photographic Couse run by Peter Craig Cooper and Emmanuel Maria. Our guides were Melissa and Willem. They were excellent guides and were very knowledgeable about the fauna and flora of the region.

The special highlight for me was the spotting and photographing the young male leopard on a orning drive from the Nossob camp. In the evenings there is a Hide at the waterhole fed by a borehole pump, that attracts a range of animals at night to this hide. Nossob Camp is also well appointed.

One does get the goodfeeling of being in the bush sort of get the bush vibe. The spectacular morning and evening skies are unmatched in beauty.
My best photos are posted here
http://www.flickr.com/photos/31649747@N08/sets/72157622309088405/
havev a look.

All in all as a local resident of the country it honestly a wonderfull place to experience a diiferent biome of Southern Africa.

Regads
Prakash Bhikha

South African part is now with the new tared road to Twee Rivieren more visited as Botswana part wich needs 4x4 car

There is basically only one main 'road' through this park, with a lot of very deep sand roads, and you have to be lucky with the wildlife. We had some excellent cheetah and lion sightings. There is one big camp on the South African side with all the mod cons, including a fuel station, but if you want the more rugged experience camp on the Botswana side.

Kgalagadi feels wild and remote.

Well developed but still authentic bush.

A place so different in the desert and to see wildlife here is spectacular. The night game drives is a MUST. To hear the lions roar at night. Mata Mata River camp has beautiful accommodation while Nossob is more basic. True africa wilderness experience.

Extremely hot and dry and yet plenty of animals. Undisturbed gamewatching

Sleep with a lion or hyena outside your tent

We stayed in the Mabuasehube area of the park.
This is one of the few places where you can pitch your tent in the wilderness without having a fence to protect you from the wildlife. It is wild, very wild and you must be careful not to be included in the diet of the lions of which there are usually plenty.

This is typical Kalahari with very hot summers and pleasant cool to hot winters and is situated in the summer rainfall region. There are not any mountains and the scenery is grasslands with camel thorn trees which is heaven for a lover of the Kalahari.

Accommodation is camp sites, some with long drop toilets and cold showers and others with nothing, just the bush.

Mabuasehube can be reached from Nossob a rest camp in the South African part of the Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park via a dune route of about 170km. This road is strictly for 4x4 vehicles with high ground clearance. The other options are from Tsabong in the South which is the route we took. This route is also just for 4x4's. There are also roads from the North and East but we have never tried them. There is no fuel available at Mabuasehube and at Tsabong we had to wait a day for the petrol to be delivered. Taking extra fuel is recommended.

The following items are not available at Mabuasehube:
1. Drinking water - take your own
2. Food - take your own
3. Diesel
4. Petrol
3. Doctors
4. Pharmacies
5. Garages
You must take along whatever you will need.

Be careful to not leave any food or anything else outside at night. Our cooler bag with cold drinks and picnic bag with all our cutlery was stolen by hyenas. Luckily we picked up cutlery stolen from previous visitors otherwise we would have had to eat with our hands. We used plastic bottles cut open for plates.

The wild life is typical Kalahari which means Springbok, Oryx, Lions, leapard and a few other antelopes as well as smaller cats and jackal. You will not find elephant, buffalo or rhino.