South Africa
Southern Africa
UK
Campsites (Africa)
On our way to the park we stopped overnight at Mthatha and visited the Nelson Mandela Museum at Qunu, which is where he was born and brought up. Qunu is in the Wild Coast area of the Eastern Cape and still consists of rural settlements. There were a couple of rooms with display boards, One gave information about his life and the struggle against apartheid. The other room contained messages and hopes for the future of South Africa. We'd enjoyed staying at the Mountain Zebra National Park earlier this year so decided to visit it again on our way to the South Coast. On our way into the Park we were lucky enough to see a leopard with her 4 cubs. They crossed the road just in front of us (at first we thought they were jackal) but by the time I'd got my camera out they were going into the bush to look for some shade. Two of the cubs. The adult and a couple of the cubs. We'd been very happy with the Oz tent that we'd been using for the last 18 months but when it needed replacing we decided to get a roof-top tent as it's safer than a ground tent when you're in the bush. The disadvantage of a roof-top tent is that you have to pack it up if you want to go anywhere (which is why we opted for the Oz tent originally) however we soon got pretty good at putting it up / down and even with using the fly sheet (optional) it only took us about 10 minutes. This photo shows the tent with the fly sheet in place. As well as looking out for animals the Park has some lovely scenery with valleys and mountains. We spent a morning driving along this river valley and then up into the hills. Apart from plenty of zebra we also saw other animals and birds. The red hartebeest and wildebeest had calves. The group of wilde beast cantered up to the waterhole, drank for several minutes and then cantered off. The red hartebeest calf on the right had a damaged back leg so, sadly, wasn't likely to survive for long. Springbok were a common sight. We also saw several bontebok. We spent some time at this waterhole which had a constant stream of visitors around midday - zebra, bontebok, wilde beast and springbok. We were hoping that the cheetahs might put in an appearance but were out of luck! Black-backed jackal. Slender mongoose. A pair of blue cranes. I was able to get quite close to this woodpecker. 1. Mountain Zebra National Park Diary (Word '97 document) Fiscal flycatchers are a common sight.
Christmas 2009 - South Africa - Mountain Zebra National Park
