Wild Eastern and Western Cape, 3 Weeks in South Africa, September 2017 (page 3 of 8)

Big Five or not Big Five?

MZ isn’t a Big Five park... if only because there are no elephants.

No elephants... apparently, there used to be elephants in this region. But now, it’s not possible—impossible to manage. Elephants cause a lot of damage and require serious fences. The ecosystem couldn’t handle elephants, and SAN Parks’ budget couldn’t cover building fences. No white rhinos... they’d starve because there isn’t enough grass during the dry seasons. There are leopards... but spotting them in this bushy, mountainous terrain? You’d really need to be lucky. We didn’t even see the cheetah (there are fewer than 10... and one of them was taken out by lions, by the way).

What’s left?

Hippos... come on, it’s bone-dry here... stop teasing...

Lions... supposedly there are 7. And black rhinos... but we’re not allowed to say how many, where they are, or share their last known locations.

Buffalo... well, yeah... we’ve already seen them... not too far away...

Tonight, we’re heading back for our second-to-last drive toward the "lake"... near the mountains (this morning it was plains, then plateau, then ridges, and back via the lake).

And... we drive by... nothing...

We go back... and...







On both sides of the road, where 10 minutes earlier there was nothing... a huge herd of buffalo... close enough to touch... A magical half-hour.

And on top of that, an incredible sight...

Buffalus sudafricanus unicornis...

A mythical animal that every game or walking safari guide dreams of seeing...

Hi Michel, I’m not sure about the Puff Adder—it’s a snake that’s only active at night and stays underground during the day. Also, it doesn’t like mountainous regions or deserts. Rapcha

Well... the MZ guide didn’t seem to have any doubts...

And me, living at her place in the desert, I don’t doubt it either. If it’s not too hot, they can show up during the day. There’s a guy here who picks them up near houses and relocates them to the desert. In black, its habitat area.

And what about the lions in all this?

You’ve got it right—the animal density in MZ isn’t the same as in Kruger.

The 450 lions in KTP represent a bit more than the handful found in MZ.

That said, in KTP, I met people who’d seen lions, I saw lion tracks, but no lions myself...

Do you know this bush saying?

"Where there are buffalo, look for lions?"

Well, yeah—a nice big meal for lions = a buffalo. (This also goes for male leopards that go after young buffalo, the buffalo calves?)

So, that early morning... do we turn right where lions were spotted three days ago? Or Do we turn left toward where the buffalo were (maybe they’re still there)?

Left it is.

A car is stopped on the side of the road...

No more buffaloes but...

But down the track...Behind the thorn bushes (not easy to focus)...



A lion, a male, attacking a buffalo carcass (did I mention that or not?).

It’s munching loudly, pulling at the carcass...



Anyway, it’s not—not yet (?)—the spot of the year...but it’s a lion eating a buffalo! What!





Things are moving, things are moving...

There were 2 of them!

One’s leaving...





(you’ll notice it’s heading toward where the park workers are...you can see a motorcycle and a car...not very safe, all that...

And the other one?



We’ve got the video here...

So we followed the big guy along the path for a good 500 meters, then...

We find him again...right in front of the picnic site gate. Still feel like having a picnic there? Remember that little barrier, the small fence, the flimsy wire mesh?



Then he continued toward the mountain.



You can imagine we hung around the area for a while...

But...

Just jackals (just jackals, say the lucky ones!)



Coming for the leftovers.



Anyway, after that,

We went to fill up the tank...just to show off a bit—"we saw lions!"—and to tell the people waiting for the game drive..."we saw lions!"

Heading to Camdeboo...

Thanks for your story and the photos.

Can’t wait to go back!!!!

I’m still skeptical given the terrain’s geology, the heat, and the altitude.

So, MZ is worth it.

Don’t expect to see buffalo or lions every time... spotting a rhino is still rare... cheetah sightings are hit or miss.

But the landscapes are really beautiful... And there’s plenty of small game...

The chalets are great—clean, functional, and not expensive considering the location and the 4 beds in ours.

The SAN Parks restaurant is decent and affordable.

I’d do the cheetah tracking again.

No regrets at all—quite the opposite.

3 nights is a good deal.

Graaff-Reinet:

You arrive via the Karoo plateau—without realizing it, you’re often well over 1,000 meters above sea level.

One last pass and there’s the town (small, around 20,000 people)... an old 18th-century town... one that used to be the third-largest in South Africa.

A town nestled in a horseshoe shape formed by the Camdeboo National Park, enclosed by the river.

An old and very typical town. A historic white center and black outlying neighborhoods. The church in the middle.





It’s a quiet little town.



Here, aside from keeping French cars...



Life goes on...

With the status of a major town in the area!

Lamb, ma’am—Merino is king.



And game... game farms mainly for meat but also for hunting or even reserves.

By the way, a big auction is planned at the end of September.

The animal trade in South Africa:

Huge debate. First, it exists.

There are three times as many lions “bred” in South Africa as there are “wild” lions.

Where does freedom end and breeding begin? Total freedom means humans observe but don’t intervene. Is intervening already a form of breeding?

For the record, bred lions are used for hunting after the optional stages of “petting lion cubs” and “walking with lions” for tourists who’ve been fed the line: “We rescued them to release them back into the wild; their mom died, sniff.” Same goes for pseudo-reserves. And lion bones, which sell for a high price to Asians who are… well, you get the idea.

Rhinos and elephants? I won’t spell it out for you.

For antelopes and the like—biltong, all game meats, hunting reserves, and so on.

Without this breeding, there’d be no biltong, no game reserves.

When it comes to hunting, I’m on the wrong side of the gun—I’m not into it.

So, there’s a trade, a commerce in wild animals. It can be entirely respectable or, in some cases, completely condemnable.

Graaff-Reinet:

It's from the viewpoint of Valley of Desolation (now called VOD) that you really understand and get a better read of the town.

A town shaped like a horseshoe

And also surrounded by the river.

In the central "disk," the white part of town. In the background, to the left and right, the three Black neighborhoods (I should say "coloured").



In the center, the white neighborhood.



On the right, two Black neighborhoods





Probably the last neighborhood to be renovated...





One of the Black neighborhoods, probably a bit more "upscale"



Sure, it's not exactly luxury.

But having been to South Africa since the 2000s, I can tell you it's a huge change compared to before...

Lions and jackals are so common 😛, but a French car in South Africa—now that’s something else!!!! On a more serious note, I just figured out what a game farm means. No mocking here.

Turns out this travel journal is useful, not just for the pretty photos.

Thanks again.

VOD

We're hiking up the mountain surrounding Graaff-Reinet





We overlook the town (see the previous post)



To get there























I'm posting the photos one after another... they don't do the scenery justice

3 stages:

A slow start with a gradual climb, a picnic spot overlooking the city, a first viewpoint, and the summit.

A walk at the top for about an hour...

Awesome! !

After some thought, I’ll still give you a little geology lesson...

Let’s keep it simple with approximate dates.

Around 500 million years ago, the South American block, the African block, and the Antarctic block collided to form Gondwana, the southern part of the supercontinent called Pangaea.

The collision created a mountain range as high as the Himalayas... with resulting folds.



What remains after erosion... It’s the Fish River Canyon, Table Mountain, the Swartberg and Baviaanskloof mountain ranges, the Cederberg... Erosion wore away the mountains... all that’s left is the base or the folds of the base. For example, the Fish River carved out the canyon... In all these areas, you can see the earth’s folds. (See more in the other travel journals.)

This massive mountain range gradually eroded, and all the sediments settled in a "basin" (the edges were the mountains, the bottom was the Karoo)... a huge deposit... laid down flat, without folding.

The erosion of this deposit created the Karoo and its "Kopjes."

Erosion on a flat surface, with a slightly harder layer, and voilà—a Kopje forms.

A beautiful Kopje, standing tall in its valley (its desolate valley), the bottom of the basin.



Fun fact: this entire South American, South African, and Antarctic block drifted south (which explains petrified trees in South Africa or Namibia—we’ll get back to that later).

Around 250 million years ago, a fracture occurred...

South America moved west, Antarctica stayed south, and Africa drifted north (India and Madagascar also broke away)...

Lava rose through the fault... over time, this lava turned into dolerite, hard, compact, and columnar... forming the top of the VOD (Volcanic Outcrop Dolerite).

The lava columns... the edge of the basin... overlooking the basin.



The unique feature of this place is that you find both Kopjes and dolerite columns in the same area.

Alright, I’ll stop here for now.

The stunning pink rock formations of the southern Breton coast...

Collision between the North American block and Europe... a massive mountain range... erosion... then fracture... leaving the base of the vanished mountain... the hard lava... so what remains are enormous blocks... pink because they’re rich in iron, which oxidizes, giving them their color.

Camdeboo, game reserve section:

So this is the game viewing and lake area... there are even water activities...

What I missed... is that there’s hardly any water. It’s dry as a bone...





We didn’t see any animals... not even the buffaloes that were supposedly there.

The year of the tortoises and monitor lizards:

Unbelievable... nearly a dozen tortoises on the trails, in the bush, and even by the roadsides.

Rrraff-Reinett :

It’s spelled Graff-Reinet, but in Afrikaans (among others), the G is a kind of prolonged RRR sound.

So it’s pronounced Rrraff-Reinet...

We’d already had this happen in Pater Noster, where the owner sent us to a restaurant called "Gaaitjie," which she pronounced "Rraaïkie"... We searched for ages, walked past the sign several times... we finally figured it out...

So Rraff-Reinet is an Afrikaner town...

We visited Mrs. Reinett’s museum...

(I know, we’re a bit nuts).

They’re redeveloping the whole town center with Dutch-style houses (guesthouses, museums, etc.).





Nothing exceptional in the museum except...

A really nice explanation about the Boer wagon.

The Boers set off in wagons pulled by oxen most of the time and crossed the continent. A bit like the pioneers of the American West. The wagon train, "circle the wagons" like in Lucky Luke (though here, the skins aren’t red but black). By the way, the Voortrekkers Monument (it’s the allegorical monument of the Great Trek, the great leap into the deep country that leads to Pretoria and further north, to Upington, to Durban; a monument that’s a bit controversial in history because it doesn’t just tell the story of the Great Trek and the Boer Voortrekkers but also glorifies it a bit... and was built by the apartheid regime or its final inspirers) ) north of Pretoria, between Pretoria and Johannesburg, is worth visiting. It’s surrounded by a circle (carved in stone) of wagons.

And well, not at all—the Boer wagon is very different, smaller, with a movable axle and different straps...





Well, there you go—now you know it too 😛

Nieu Bethesda

Well, since the Camdeboo National Park ended up being a bit disappointing for wildlife...

We decided to take a trip to Nieu Bethesda...

So we took the Owl Road.





Can’t say the weather’s great, but just to remind you, we’re at high altitude.







Look, a koppie.





The African surprise...

A road not meant for non-4x4s, construction work... they flooded the road... a 20 cm layer of mud on a slope... and without a 4x4, we just had to wait for it to dry...



Nieu Bethesda, we’ve arrived.