Marakele National Park.

Today we travelled on highways and byways on tar and on gravel and arrived at Malekele at about 3. The route took us from Alldays to Tolwe, to Baltimore and then to Marken and finally to Vaalwater. It nearly reads like an international itinerary! From Vaalwater we took a road that went along the edge of the park and through the Waterberg. After the flat country side from earlier in the day, this was absolutely beautiful.  One thing that there was plenty of along the way is Game farms and hunting farms and hunting related evidence. We saw one huge game capturing and obviously game auctioning site. We arrived at the park via the Bakker’s pass. The campsite is big and the sites are well positioned and big. Tomorrow we start exploring yet again.

This morning we went into Thabazimbi for some essentials and breakfast and a quick opportunity to send off a bit of my blog. We have now been out of Internet connectivity for more than a week and I have lots a spare photos to put on now.

This park is so different from any other that we have been to.  It is split into 2 parts, with the camp site being situated in the savanna area where there are lots of antelope, zebra, warthog and rhino. The other part is in the more mountainous area and there are predators, elephant and some antelope and zebra. We never saw any of the predators, as the area is vast and they don’t hang around with a signboard to tell you where they are.  Very inconsiderate, I would say, but that is wildlife for you. The rest of the animals we saw easily.

We stopped at the picnic spot for lunch and were joined by a lot of bees, who were after our  G&T’s, apple cores and naartjie skins. We had left the aplle cares on the edge of the table and the bees seemed to be very happy with this and left us alone.  Then out of nowhere appeared Mrs Ostrich, walking like somebody wearing the wrong size high hill shoes. She walked straight to the table and regardless of the bees, picked up every bit of fruit and swallowed it. The bees were gone in a wink. Not sure if she swallowed some or if they just flew away. That was in any case the end of the bee problem.

There is a Cape Vulture breeding colony on top of the mountains here in the park. They claim 800 breeding pairs. I have no idea how they know that. We drove up there on a narrow winding, but tarred road. The scenery is magnificent and the Waterberg is a beautiful area. We never saw any of the 800 breeding pairs, only a few vultures flying high in the sky some distance away. The journey up the mountain is well worth the time that it takes to get there, though.

We had a very exciting moment at the view point when we thought that we had identified a rare bird. We took pictures and already had the plan of who to contact and what to do, however on closer look and studying the photos we realized that we were wrong. What a letdown that was, but such it is with birds. It is nearly like playing the Lotto, you keep on hoping that you win the big one!!!

We are now beginning to feel the first real cold weather of our trip. The days are still warmish, however the nights and the early mornings are crispy cold. Tomorrow morning we are off to Pretoria for 4 nights. We are looking forward to spending some time with friends and family.