November 2020

The Camdeboo National Park pretty much surrounds the town of Graaff-Reinet.

It consists of three separate parts, the main game viewing area around the dam, the Valley of Desolation area on the left, and the 4×4 area on the right. About half of the Valley of Desolation area is accessible by car, the other half is marked “4×4”.

So we left Fish Hoek early on Saturday, N2 to Mossel Bay, R328 to Oudtshoorn, Willowmore, Aberdeen… N1 via Beaufort West would probably have been quicker but it’s always nice to take a road you havn’t seen before.

Stopped at the Oppi-Vlak farm stall where they are very proud of their koek.

The Camdeboo campsite is nice, except for the plague of monkeys. I understand it’s hard to keep them out, but SanParks do have to pay more attention to this problem, these little guys make the experience less pleasant.

Curious mouse.

Curious zebra.

Curious gemsbok.

Lots of baby gemsbok.

Three-horned black wildebeest.

Wheee!

Bat-eared foxes are cute.

5c birds. They used to be endangered but these days I think they’re doing better than 5c pieces, which are obsolete.

We didn’t see any meerkat, which was a pity.

 

 

 

 

(Backdated, as usual. If the last entry is not around the 20th of November, check back later for more)

A lot of people had to cancel their travelling plans this year. Back in July I took a chance that things would be more-or-less back to normal in November, and booked us ten days in Kruger.

I decided on five days at Balule (which is the campsite for Olifants, because obviously we were taking the teardrop) and five days at Lower Sabie.

Kruger has a number of what they call “Bushveld Camps” which have “limited facilities” — private cottages with everything the main camps have except maybe air conditioning, and no restaurant or shop, sometimes not enough power for a hair drier… absolute luxury compared to Balule, which has hot showers and a shared deep freeze.

And with the reduction in tourism, I could actually get a night at Talamati (it’s expensive, the one night there cost as much as five days camping at Lower Sabie, but the main reason we’ve not gone to one of these before is that they are booked out a year in advance, normally).

So it became four nights at Balule, one at Talamati, five at Lower Sabie.

And because we can’t just always Kruger, Kruger, Kruger, I decided to take a slightly longer drive going up, going via the Camdeboo park at Graaff-Reinet.

So, Saturday 2020-11-07, depart Fish Hoek, drive to Camdeboo. Spend Sunday there. Monday, drive to Meyerton, sleep over. Tuesday, drive to Hoedspruit via Dullstroom, visit friends in Hoedspruit. Wednesday, hit the park, stay until Saturday 2020-11-21, drive to Bloemfontein, overnight, drive home.