My Transfrontier Park

I will be the first to admit and defend the statement that South Africa has to be one of the most beautiful countries in the world. There's just no getting around it: this place must have been first in line when natural beauty was handed out. Despite its many social problems, South Africans can rest assured that their natural heritage is well protected by the National Parks and is available for all to see, even for the poorest amongst them. Most of the parks are reasonably easy to access, some will even allow pedestrians access, and all can provide good to luxurious accomodation and facilities.

But there are a few renegades to this rule. The Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park is one of these. It is difficult to access, being situated in the northern most tip of the country, squashed between Namibia to the west and Botswana to the east. The last 40km to the entrance are not even tarred, making it difficult to reach with regular cars. Vehicles without a decent suspension and people with weak bladders or prone to migraines might want to avoid it alltogether, as it can get a little bumpy. A species that will not be found in KTP is the day-tripping tourist: this fact makes it all the more attractive in my eyes. Due to its remoteness and size it is impossible to visit for just a day and most visitors will be travelling for a week or longer along the endless dust roads, perhaps crossing into the Botswanan side of the park as well. Speaking of size, the park is about 3 million hectares, making it a bit bigger than the Netherlands and exactly one million hectares bigger than the more famous Kruger Park.

It is true wilderness. Of all the national parks and reserves in South Africa, the KTP is without a doubt the most pristine. This simply because of its size, a minimum of human interference and the chance for wildlife to actually migrate, something which has been made impossible in all other parks, including Kruger, because of the fences. And while the South African side still has some basic tourism infrastructure, the Botswanan side only has a few 4x4 roads, making it one of the roughest and loneliest areas to travel through in southern Africa. This is one of the harshest environments in the region, with summer temperatures draining all moisture from the earth and winter nights reaching well below -10 degrees. Massive red sand dunes greet visitors upon entrance, while herds of antilopes (predominantly oryx, eland, wildebeest and springbok) play the endless cat-and-mouse game with the predators of the Kalahari - lions, cheetahs, leopards and hyena's.

I went to KTP a few weeks ago with two of my charming colleagues from GVI, namely the volunteers from Namaqua NP and Tsitsikamma NP. We had intended on making this a true GVI reunion, but logistics are sometimes tough to manage when people need to come from all over the country to one of the least accessible places one can imagine. As all the traditional camps were fully booked (not a rare occurrence) we managed to persuade the park manager to allow us to stay in the Education Centre - normally used for visiting schoolgroups. This centre, about 30km from the nearest restcamp, is hidden between two massive dunes and is on a staff-only road in the middle of nowhere. It was our private desert camp, and if not for the lack of heating at night it would have been truly perfect - trust me, getting up to go to the bathroom at night (which was located outside of course) was a true feat of willpower. The temperature dropped to -6 at night you see.

I will spare you any further details of our daily activities, but will instead leave you with several of my best pictures - I took about 400 of them. Not in vain either because our final tally of "What Did You See" beats any wildlife experience I have ever had - alright, except getting charged by an elephant, but it was a close call! To sum up:

Three leopard sightings. One of which was of a mother with subadult cub. Not a glimpse either: mom and son walked in front of the car for about twenty minutes. I know.

Two lion kills. Our second sighting was of a fresh eland kill and we arrived just as the man was taking his share. A few minutes later he was joined by about six cubs and two females. The cubs were especially keen to inspect our car (we were the only ones there) and if I had stuck my arm out of the open window I would probably have lost it.

Two brown hyena sightings. The brown hyena is NOT the hyena we always see on those documentaries or in the Lion King movie. This one is very shy, mostly solitary and much less aggressive than its spotted cousin. A very rare sight to be sure, and we were priviliged with two. Think werewolf and you have an accurate picture of them.

Several wild cat sightings. A nocturnal predator, we were lucky to see them in the evenings because it was too cold for them to hunt at night.

Countless horny things (antilopes I mean your dirty rascal).

We were very lucky indeed. I hope you enjoy the pictures.