The Cape Leopard Trust — small cats with big problems

Dr Quinton Martins, the man behind The Cape Leopard Trust, has seen only seven ad hoc sight­ings of wild leo­pards in the Cederberg where his research takes place in eight years. Even with col­lars, he sees but a few each year. The Cape Leopard is a vul­ner­able, isol­ated pop­u­la­tion that occurs at low dens­ity in the moun­tains of the Northern, Eastern and Western Cape. Due to the influ­ence of European set­tlers over the past 350 years, it has already been made extinct in many areas where it used to roam. As the trust head­lines in its adverts to raise aware­ness: Leopards of the Cape are small cats with BIG prob­lems ... Continued

Kruger – the low down on what to remember, where to stay, what to do and spotting the Big 5

Kruger National Park

The Kruger National Park is undoubtedly THE place to be when it comes to see­ing game in what should be their nat­ural envir­on­ment.  Even if dur­ing school hol­i­days the num­ber of people enter­ing the park is ques­tion­able, traffic fairly con­ges­ted, and the tend­ency of indi­vidu­als to do silly things like feed hyenas and mon­keys (now a con­stant pest in vari­ous rest camps) a sign that even in the Kruger, humans are encroach­ing on the free­dom of the anim­als within. Despite this Kruger Park is a fant­astic experience.

One of the world's largest game parks, Kruger has received a  myriad accol­ades for nature con­ser­va­tion and, more recently, has begun lower­ing fences that sep­ar­ate the park from neigh­bour­ing reserves, allow­ing the wild­life within even greater access to land and water, and increas­ing the chance to spot game. Continued

Southern Kruger — we review 3 restcamps + hot spots for sighting game

Southern Kruger

The south­ern region of the Kruger National Park lies between the Crocodile River to the south, the Sabie in the north and, in the east, the Lebombo Mountains. Nothing quite pre­pares you for the park's impact, the trees and hills an unex­pec­ted fla­vour to the pic­ture I had of the bushveld as, well, flat (des­pite hav­ing gone to the Kruger as a child).

The south­ern region gets more rain dur­ing the year which trans­lates into more game, shaded by the pres­ence of the Cape chest­nut, coral tree, lav­ender fever berry, and white pear. Continued

Sublime Sanbona

Sanbona Safari

As any born-and-bred Capetonian will tell you, one of the few things we envy of the city slick­ers in Joburg, is their abil­ity to hop into a car and head off to the Kruger Park (at a moment’s notice) for a quick res­pite from the daily grind of city liv­ing. It’s taken me 32 years to find the Cape Town equi­val­ent … enter Sanbona Wildlife Reserve, a true Big 5 game exper­i­ence, just 3 and a half hours drive from Cape Town (on the very scenic Route 62) – a per­fect week­end get­away for wild­life enthusiasts.

We arrived at the main gate on Friday after­noon after an easy drive – we left Cape Town early, avoid­ing any week­end traffic – and what a dif­fer­ence it makes not hav­ing to fly, no stress or long waits at the air­port. Just 5 minutes after sign­ing in, we were en-route to the lodge and I was rewar­ded with my first ever Black-Backed Jackal sight­ing. Off to a good start! And it only got bet­ter. Continued

Really Close — A Cheetah Approach

“Just remem­ber they are wild anim­als”, a warn­ing from Rudi, our game ranger, as we dis­em­bark our game vehicle. We’d been track­ing two male Cheetah near the Northern Gate of Sanbona Wildlife Reserve for about an hour and had finally spot­ted them (no pun inten­ded), lay­ing in the brush about 30 metres from the road.

“Stay close,” a reminder. “They’ll let us know once we’re close enough.”

And I’m think­ing, how exactly are they going to do that? And with that we’re off, walk­ing in single file Continued

A new field guide joins the Tswalu Team

The latest addi­tion to the team of field guides at Tswalu Kalahari Reserve is Cameron Pearce, an exper­i­enced ranger and man­ager who joins Tswalu with nearly five years’ exper­i­ence at three excep­tional South African game reserves, namely Kapama Private Game Reserve, Sabi Sabi Private Game Reserve and Lion Sands Private Game Reserve ... Continued

The Marakele National Park

Marakele National Park

There’s a reason why so many for­eign films are shot in South Africa. It’s not just the read­ily avail­able local skills and the cheaper prices – it’s also because of the loc­a­tion. Very few places in the world offer such diverse loc­a­tions in one place. The Marakele National Park, in the Limpopo Province is an example of a film­makers’ dream. Situated in the Waterberg moun­tain range, its dis­tinct land­scape offers every from ragged moun­tains to lav­ish grass­lands and deep val­leys. You could prob­ably shoot a fantasy epic like Lord of the Rings there and never have to leave. Continued

The Madikwe Game Reserve

Madikwe Game Reserve

Game reserves, like dark chocol­ate covered straw­ber­ries, are one of those things that you just can’t get enough of. Millions of years of human evol­u­tion have designed us to nat­ur­ally prefer the great out­doors to an office cubicle. Who can argue with that?

The Madikwe game reserve cov­ers 75,000 hec­tares mak­ing it one of South Africa’s largest. The Madikwe Game Reserve show­cases Africa at its finest. Immense plains of open wood­lands and grass­lands, the jagged Rant van Tweedepoort, the dra­matic Dwarsberg Mountain as well as haphaz­ardly placed insel­bergs, all make for awe inspir­ing scenery. Throw in the Big Five and this des­tin­a­tion is every tour­ists dream. Located against the Botswana bor­der, north of the small town Groot Marico. Continued

Tswalu guides excel

The team of five guides at Tswalu Kalahari Private Game Reserve have writ­ten and passed their FGASA Level 3 exams, says Managing Director Russel Binks. This means that the guides are qual­i­fied to “point out and explain in terms of sci­entific the­ory and cul­tural belief, the fea­tures of the nat­ural envir­on­ment in which s/he is oper­at­ing, and put it into broader eco­lo­gical context”.

According to The Field Guides Association of Southern Africa (FGASA), which provides edu­ca­tional oppor­tun­it­ies to pro­mote the con­ser­va­tion and rehab­il­it­a­tion of the cul­tural and nat­ural her­it­age of Southern Africa, the know­ledge and insight expec­ted at Level 3 is unlikely to be obtained without at least two years of act­ive guid­ing in the field.  “A gen­eral dis­tinc­tion between the com­pet­ence at this level as opposed to lower levels is the abil­ity to explain phe­nom­ena by means of valid and well-motivated sci­entific the­or­ies and the con­com­it­ant use of appro­pri­ate sci­entific ter­min­o­logy.” Continued

Bono and Ali visit Tswalu Kalahari Private Game Reserve

Tswalu Kalahari

Lead singer of the Irish rock band U2, Bono and his wife Ali Hewson, were guests of Tswalu Kalahari, South Africa’s largest privately owned game reserve, earlier this year when they were pho­to­graphed by Annie Liebovitz, the world’s most cel­eb­rated por­trait pho­to­grapher, for the Louis Vuitton Core Values Campaign, which over the years has fea­tured vari­ous per­son­al­it­ies with “extraordin­ary stature”.

It is the first advert­ising cam­paign that the couple has fea­tured in and appears in the October 2010 issues of inter­na­tional titles.

Louis Vuitton has estab­lished itself as one of the world’s lead­ing fash­ion houses ... Continued

Tenikwa — Spots and stripes

Tenikwa Wildlife

One of those dif­fi­cult to spot spe­cies in the bush is the cats, or to be more spe­cific, those ever elu­sive leo­pard and chee­tah. So pay­ing a visit to the Tenikwa Wildlife Awareness Centre, just out­side Plettenberg Bay is a priv­ilege to which I am look­ing forward.

Having been relieved of my hand­bag (one can only carry cam­eras into the enclos­ures), we embarked upon our one-hour tour at 09h30, with our two little boys in hand. The centre is open from 09h00 and tours depart every half hour to 16h30. Our first stop appeared to be the good old domestic cat, only on a far grander scale, and can weigh up to 6.5kg. Continued

Visit a South African National Park for free this week

Kruger National Park

From Monday to Friday this week (13 to 17 September 2010), all South Africans can spend a day at one of South Africa's glor­i­ous national parks without pay­ing an entry fee — thanks to the "Know Your National Parks" campaign.

South African National Parks board (SANParks) will allow all South Africans with valid ID doc­u­ments to enter any park man­aged by it, com­pletely free of charge (three parks are excluded from this free­bie deal, they are Boulders in the Table Mountain National Park, Tankwa Karoo and Namaqua national park and includes entrance fees Continued

Kruger National Park photographs

Two months ago, I embarked on a 2 week road trip of South Africa, includ­ing a week in our most fam­ous game reserve: the Kruger National Park. This was my first visit, and my mind still boggles at the sheer size of the Kruger park and the mag­ni­fi­cence of its untouched wil­der­ness. I am not a pro­fes­sional pho­to­grapher, but I hope you’ll enjoy this col­lec­tion of pho­to­graphs that I took. We were lucky enough to see the Big 5 twice dur­ing our stay, but it is some of the “other” wild­life pho­tos that most inspires me and reminds me of the won­der­ful hol­i­day we had within our beau­ti­ful coun­try. Continued

A holiday in the crater of a once active volcano ... Pilanesberg Reserve

When a friend of mine sug­ges­ted that our next hol­i­day in South Africa should be in the crater of a once act­ive vol­cano, I wasn't sure it was a good idea. I've seen way too many dis­aster movies to not know that people say “it’s been inact­ive for mil­len­nia” about fif­teen minutes before the thing erupts and the main char­ac­ters spend the rest of the movie fight­ing for their lives.

Turns out the main char­ac­ters in this adven­ture (a group of friends and myself) spent our time explor­ing and relax­ing for our lives. The long extinct vol­cano crater in ques­tion is now home to the Pilanesberg Game reserve and was well worth the vis­ions of dis­aster ... Continued

Beautiful Bonamanzi!

Beautiful Bonamanzi

We had fam­ily out from the USA over Christmas so arranged to spend two nights at Bonamanzi Game Park ... on safari!  I will be the first to admit that I’m not a big fan of the bush; I appre­ci­ate the beauty of it but let’s face it, the bush in mid sum­mer when its 30 degrees at 5 in the morn­ing is just not pleas­ant.  It’s espe­cially not pleas­ant when the camp you are stay­ing at does not have a swim­ming pool or air conditioning!

Bonamanzi how­ever, is a breath of fresh air... Continued