National Parks week – get in for free

It's offi­cial. This week, start­ing today 14^th September, you can get into any (or at least the major­ity) of the South African National Parks (SANParks) for free. So, if you're in Cape Town you have the whole of the Table Mountain National Park at your dis­posal, and, bet­ter still, if you're up in Limpopo and Mpumalanga, the Kruger National Park is yours for free this week ... (that's your entrance fee, not your accom­mod­a­tion, unfortunately).

For those of you who, like me, didn't have a clue that such a thing as National Parks Week exis­ted, then the next seven days are yours to explore the parks that the major­ity of South Africans prob­ably never get to see — Madikwe, Addo, Richtersveld, Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park, Mountain Zebra, Camdeboo, Tsitsikamma, and even the more recent Garden Route National Park. There are just over 20 dif­fer­ent parks (see http://www.sanparks.org/parks/) around the coun­try that fall under SANParks, and each of them is a treas­ure trove of con­ser­va­tion efforts, and a chance to see anim­als and plants of every hue in their nat­ural environment.

Here fol­low three of my favour­ite parks. These are by no means the best parks, as they are all equally worth a visit, but two of them are a little less pop­u­lar, and well worth see­ing because of their uniqueness:

Addo Elephant Park

Addo Elephant National Park
Why visit it?
• home to the Big 7
• see one of the most dense African ele­phant pop­u­la­tions on earth
• home to the flight­less dung beetle
• the largest coastal dune field in the south­ern hemi­sphere
• self-drive and horse trail options

Fast becom­ing one of the major reas­ons why tour­ists visit South Africa, the Addo Elephant National Park, as its name sug­gests, is the place in the Eastern Cape to com­mune with  over 400 ele­phants, at a rel­at­ively safe dis­tance, of course, although you can do the park on the back of an ele­phant, horse or even walk – you're cer­tainly not lim­ited to remain­ing within your vehicle.

What makes it so pop­u­lar is the easy prox­im­ity to Port Elizabeth and the fact that it's mal­aria free. The envir­on­ment too is incred­ibly beau­ti­ful, as the park lies within the Sundays River val­ley and con­tains five of the seven major bio­mes or veget­a­tion areas in South Africa. Addo also boasts all Big 7 anim­als – buf­falo, ele­phant, lion, leo­pard, rhino­ceros, whale and great white shark, and now includes the Woody Cape Nature Reserve, which encom­passes Bird Eland – home to the world's largest breed­ing pop­u­la­tion of Cape gan­nets, and the second largest breed­ing pop­u­la­tion of African pen­guins.

Camdeboo National Park

Camdeboo National Park
Why visit it?
• Valley of Desolation
• incred­ible scenery
• home to the bat-eared fox
• the quaint town of Graaff-Reinet

This is one of my all time favour­ite parks, and one of the lesser known or pop­u­lar parks — and may it stay that way! For a start, I love the way the name rolls off the tongue and the image that it evokes in me (if you've read Etienne van Heerden's The Long Silence of Mario Salviatti you'll know exactly what I'm talk­ing about). The word Camdeboo developed out of a sim­ilar sound­ing word in the Khoi lan­guage mean­ing 'green pool' or 'green hippo pool' and it goes a long way to describ­ing this incred­ible fer­tile val­ley in the midst of the Karoo, com­plete with impress­ive mountains.

Camdeboo National Park encircles the town of Graaff-Reinet and provides some of the most breath-taking scenery of the region. The major part of the now 19 405 hec­tare park lies in the foot­hills of the Sneeuberg range, but one of the main reas­ons for vis­it­ing the park is the Valley of Desolation, also known as the 'Cathedral of the Mountains'. There is some­thing bor­der­ing on spir­itual about this val­ley. How can one not stand in awe when perched, the vast Karoo plains spread before one, on the pin­nacle of enorm­ous doler­ite columns that stand up to 120 metres high. One's part in the greater scheme of things is imme­di­ately put into perspective.

The Valley of Desolation became a national monu­ment in 1935 and the Camdeboo National Park fell under the man­age­ment of SANParks only in 2005, with 14 500 hec­tares of land was donated by the WWF for Nature. The park is a haven for hikers, with a num­ber of day walks and overnight trails, as well as a fair amount of game. For day vis­it­ors there are pic­nic sites and braai areas (although watch out for the 'long drop' toilet).

Namaqua National Park

Namaqua National Park
Why visit it?
• flower power
• Namaqualand dais­ies
• gazanias, tulips, pelar­goni­ums and beetle dais­ies etc.
• the world's smal­lest tor­toise, the Namaqua speckled padloper

Incorporating the reserve known simply as Skilpad amongst flower fun­dis or Skilpad Wild Flower Reserve, the Namaqua National Park at this time of the year is, without sound­ing dra­matic, simply one of the most beau­ti­ful places to be, if stand­ing on a car­pet of wild flowers is your thing (it's really anyone's 'thing' if you but see it!).

Namaqualand is the place of the richest bulb flora of any arid region in the world. Over 1000 of the plant spe­cies here, it is estim­ated, are not found any­where else on the planet. Oh, and there are beau­ti­ful quiver trees, incred­ible gran­ite out­crops, beau­ti­ful suc­cu­lents, the chances of see­ing a por­cu­pine, and the odd scor­pion. But really people travel here in August / September to see the flowers that give even the incred­ible star-studded night skies a run for their money.

Useful Links:
SAN Parks Official Website
South Africa Game Reserves
South Africa Accommodation