Category: South Africa

First and foremost, happy mother’s day to all you mothers out there!

Second, today was a rather grueling long haul day driving from Mountain Zebra National Park 9 hours (argh) northeast up to Golden Gate Highlands National Park. As depicted in the map above, my original plan was to go to Mokala National Park for a couple of nights on the way to Golden Gate, but since I spent a few more days in Cape Town than originally expected, I had to cut out Mokala – bummer. Anyways, I am going to save my overview of this Park until tomorrow after I have seen the Park and am able to share photos and stories, etc. For now, let me share a few observations, photos and sounds of the day.

Shortly after leaving Mountain Zebra National Park heading in a northeast direction I left the Eastern Cape Province and entered the Freestate Province and started encountering immense cattle and sheep ranches – albeit with very few head of livestock. Nothing like the intensive livestock densities we see on similar productive grasslands in the states. Based on the fencing, these ranches must be ’10s’ of thousands of acres each, if not more – and I can ony imaging how these vast land holdings were acquired from the indigenous peoples back during the great trek north from Cape Town by the pioneer white dutch-descendent “voortrekkers” as they were called, or the Brittish settlers who came along behind them. The landscape was nothing spectacular, just vast grass-covered plains and scattered hills:

As I headed northeast further into the Free State, land productivity apparently increased and I started seeing vast fields of mostly corn, but some sorghum (I think) as well, and increasing homesites. I could have easily been driving through Iowa had I not seen the mountains in the distance:

OK, enough of the somewhat boring landscape from today. The species of the species of the day is the Springbok which I have seen a plenty. Despite their abundance and ubiquity in southern Africa they are nonetheless a very cool species – and beautiful too! As you can see from the picture I took below, they in some ways resemble our North American pronghorn antelope. Like the pronghorn, the springbok is also an antelope of the semi-desert environment and can survive for very long periods without drinking any water. Instead, it can derive much of its water needs from the food it eats when surface water is not available. Consequently, it occupies habitats that are much too dry for many of the other antelope species that we will encounter. This species likes open expanses of grassland and perhaps some scattered shrubs, but you don’t find them when the shrub cover gets too great or in woodlands because they would too easily fall prey to leapords and lions. Instead, a major predator they have to be on the look for in their preferred open country is the cheetah – the fast land animal on Earth. I often see springbok in small groups of bachelors but other times I see large herds of 20-50 or more containing adults and young. The young ones especially love to “play” by chasing each other around, and both the young and adults like to “pronk”, or run and jump in the air with arched back and stiff legs. They are really fun to watch!

OK, here is the mystery sound for today that I just recorded while lying in my roof-top bed in the public campsite at Golden Gate Highlands National Park. Can you guess what it is?

Well, if you guessed Coyote you are not far from the mark. This is the call of the Black-backed jackal, which is close to being the ecological counterpart of the Coyote here in Africa. Here is a picture I stole from the internet so that you can see what the critter looks like:

Until next time, sleep tight and don’t let the jackals bite!

My next stop after leaving Karoo National Park was going to be Camdeboo National Park, but when I arrived it was totally socked in with clouds, and the forecast was for likely rain over the next few days. The primary attraction and why I planned to visit the Park is its huge dolerite pillars, some of which are 120 meters high, located in the “Valley of Desolation”. Note, dolerite is an igneous rock (i.e., rock initially molten and injected as a fluid into older sedimentary rocks); thus, it stands in stark contrast to the surrounding layered sedimentary rocks. The Valley of Desolation is purported to be quite spectacular. However, the weather would have prevented me from seeing anything so I opted to continue on – major bummer!

On my way to my next destination, I continued travelling across the Great Karoo for several hours. One of the things I find fascination about the natural world are ecological convergences; that is, ecological systems and/or environments that evolve over time to be very similar in terms of their physical environment and their flora and fauna, despite being geographically isolated. In these convergent ecosystems, the plant and animal speciers are totally different yet perform the same or very similar ecological functions. I mention this because driving across the Karoo reminds me in so many ways of driving through parts of western North America. There are extensive semi-arid plains that go on for as far as the eye can see, reminding me of the non-irrigated western great plains – I could easly believe I was driving through parts of Nebraska or Kansas, as shown here:

These plains are regularly broken up by grass and shrub-covered hills, mesa-like landforms and mountains proper, reminding me of parts of the inner mountain west – I could easily believe I was driving through parts of Idaho or Utah, as these photos depict:

One of the biggest surprises for me regarding this part of South Africa is that I came with the preconceived notion that most of this part of the country was populated (by humans, that is) and in some form of productive agriculture, whether that be cultivated or pastoral land use. Instead, this landscape (the Karoo, that is) is almost completed unpopulated and wild, even though it is almost entirely private land. I belive what I am looking at are immense ranches (mostly just a few sheep herds, as I have not seen a single cow!!!) and game farms – places where people pay big bucks to go shoot big game animals. If you like wild places with “big sky”, this is clearly a place to visit. After some consideration, I believe the answer lies in the climate, as this area receives less than 20 inches of precipitation a year, which is generally the minimum for cultivation. There is a 20 inch precipitation line that runs north to south that essentially demarcates the western States (Western Cape and North Cape) from the agricultural eastern States (Eastern Cape, Freestate, KwaZulu-Natal).

One last observation on the landscape. The Karoo is vast, as I have said, and once had a relatively abundant megafauna (those large beasts) – albeit at much lower densities than elsewhere – which were largely eliminated by hunting. Today, the megafuana (essentiall all mammals larger than, say, a deer) are almost entirely restricted to the few national parks and game farms (where they are raised as game for hunters). So, the few national parks, such as Karoo, Camdeboo and Mountain Zebra are relics where nature still rules, noting that in these parks several of the larger species (rhino, lion, cheetah, etc.) had to be reintroduced since they had been erradicated. It’s a sad story of human overexploitation not too dissimilar to what was done in North America. These Parks are real lifelines for several of these species.

My destination was Mountain Zebra National Park, located near the town of Cradock. Mountain Zebra NP (110 sq. mi.), established in 1937, is on the eastern edge of the Great Karoo ecosystem; consequently, the vegetation is similar – dominated by grasslands and shrublands, although open- and closed-woodlands are common here in the valley bottoms and prominent rock outcroppings are distinctive as well. Indeed, this area on the eastern side of the Karoo gets a bit more precipitation so the vegetation is more productive. I took the Green Dragon out for a drive through most of the Park, including some 4×4 roads that had mud and some steep rocky/ledgy hill climbs – the Green Dragon performed like a “rock star’. Here is a whole series of pictures that show both the landscape and the drive:

The most notable feature of the Park, and its namesake, is that it is home to the very rare and endangered mountain zebra (I posted a picture of one in my previous post), which will serve as our species of the day. A few decades ago fewer than 20 individuals of this zebra species existed, but since then their numbers have recovered; currently there are more than 350 in the Park and upwards of 5,000 total in the wild. The mountain zebra is distinguished from its more common cousin, the Burchell’s zebra of the plains, by the narrow black and white stripes that extend right down to the hooves (whereas in the Burchell’s the stripes fade down the legs), the grid-iron black and white pattern on the rump, the clear white belly (the stripes do not join under the belly, whereas in the Burchell’s they do), and the longer, more donkey-like ears. In addition, mountain zebras do not aggregate into large herds like plains zebras; instead, they form small family groups consisting of a single stallion and one to five mares, together with their recent offspring. So far, I have been lucky enough to see Mountain Zebra now in three different Parks: Table Mountain (Cape Peninsular), Karoo, and now Mountain Zebra National Park.

OK, for those of you that have read this far (yikes) here are a few observations for you to figure out. First, what critter do you think made this cool dwelling (note, the opening diameter is perhaps 8-10 inches):

Pretty cool little hut, hey. Whoever did it, was a pretty good sculptor as they cared this entrance and tunnel down into an underground sanctuary with their bare hands. You wildlifers, did you guess it? Right, an Aardvark! Unfortunately, you have to out at night to see this guys as they are strictly noctural.

OK, last trivia question. What made this sound?

Wildlifers, did you guess it? Sounds a lot like someone we have in North America. It’s a close relative: the Blue Crane! I saw two groups of 4-5 individuals on my drive today and one of the groups had one individual calling and I was able to capture it – yeah!

OK, sory for such a long posting but as you can see I had a lot to say! Next stop, Golden Gate Highlands National Park – and let’s hope it’s not raining all day and night like it has been here.

As mentioned previously, my first National Park after leaving Cape Town is Karoo National Park, located just west of the town of Beaufort West. Karoo NP (297 sq. mi.), established in 1979, is part of the Great Karoo ecosystem, the largest distinct ecosystem in South Africa. It is a vast and unforgiving landscape, yet still home to a fascinating diversity of life, all having adapted to survive in harsh semi-desert conditions. Unfortunately, most of the wildlife that once roamed the Karoo have been eradicated, but the Park is a relatively small area where this unique environment and its animals are protected and persist. This semi-desert area is a sanctuary for herds of springbok, oryx (gemsbok), mountain zebra, buffalo, red hartebeest, black rhinoceros, eland, kudu, klipspringer, bat-eared foxes, black-backed jackal, ostriches, and lions – I saw most of these species today on my drive. It also has the greatest number of tortoise species of any park in the world – five in total! Most of vegetation consists of montane grasslands at the highest elevations where is gets the most precipitation, grading into grassy shrublands and dwarf shrublands at the lower elevations where the precipitation is very low and uncertain, and the occasional riparian thicket along the drainage bottoms – think Sonoran Desert of the American Southwest minus the saguaro cacti and you get a pretty good picture of the environment, as the following pictures try to depict:

My campsite is the public rest camp in the Park. As campsites go, it’s nothing to rave about. I have a small patch of ground surrounded on three sides by thornbushes, but very much within earshot of the other campsites. Modern showers, laundry, kitchen, power hookups, water spickets at every site, etc.. You get the picture. A fairly modern, full amenites campsite. Not the kind of “bush” camping I prefer, but there is no “wild” camping in the South African parks. As an aside, I had some free time this afternoon at my campsite, so I took the opportunity to make a video of the Green Dragon in all its glory . You can check out the vehicle page on this site if you want to see the Dragon in full regalia.

I took a “game” drive today (note, even though it is not really about seeing “game”, which technically refers to hunted species, the locals still refer to these wildlife drives as game drives, so I will go local too) and didn’t see a sole (human, that is) for 5 hours, and then saw maybe 5 vehicles during my last couple of hours. That made for an awesome wildlife viewing exerience that I won’t always have at other more popular safari parks. I saw lots of cool species, including two different species of zebra (mountain zebra and plains zebra) and several different antelope species (gemsbok, springbok, red hartebeest, lesser kudu, mountain reedbuck, and klipspringer) and a dozen or so new bird species. Here are some not-so-great photos I took today of some of these species (note, I have a crappy little camera without a big telephoto lens, so it’s hard for me to get good close-up pictures in focus):

My favorite was a stop at a small out-of-the-way little water hole down a 4×4 road, where I sat for perhaps an hour and watched one new bird species after another come to the hole for a drink. Even had a close up of a small grey mongoose on the prowl at the water hole. My camera is not sufficient for photographing birds (except for the occasional ostrich), so I have no bird pictures of my own to share. For you wildlifers out there, especially those that like to list species seen, I created a wildlife species page on this site where I will keep a running list of species seen on this trip. However, for the broader audience, I am going to simply highlight a single cool species I see each day I am in the field.

My species of the day is the Ludwig’s Bustard. This a large cursorial bird adapted for running more than flying. Think chicken-size bird but very long legs and long neck, which they use to run down and catch lizzards, small snakes, rodents and insects of all types. The males also have a throat pouch that they inflate in a spectacular display while strutting around amidst other males in what is called a Lek, all to attract females for the prize of mating. I saw pair of these magnificant birds but wasn’t able to get a photo so I am shamelessly going to borrow a photo off the internet for your benefit:

Today was a driving day between the Cape Region and the Great Karoo. I wanted to share a few thoughts and mostly photos to show you what the landscape looks like, before I delve into the Karoo in more detail tomorrow. Leaving my quaint campsite in the vineyard just north of Cape Town I drove through many more miles of valley-filled vineyards nestled in some pretty rugged and rocky mountains. Here a couple of pictures depicing the scene:

If you love wines, wow, this is the place to go. I have never seen so many acres of vineyards – they simply go on an on in the valleys. I am sure this rivals, or perhaps exceeds, the NAPA valley in California. However, the mountain valley setting is more spectacular in my opinion. Sean, if you were here I don’t think we would have made it very far today and probably would be saying the same a week from now.

Now, I dont’ want to suggest that everything is idyllic in wine country, because there is a “dark” side to all of this. We all know that apartheid is officially over in South Africa, but that is more of a political reality than a practial one. Yes, the SA government is now run predominantly by the majority black Africans, but the reality is that the white South Africans still run almost all of the major businesses while the black South Africans provide the manual labor. This is certainly true in wine country. All the vineyards and major businesses appear to be white owned and run, but it looks to me like most of the labor is done by very poor black South Africans. There is a definite economic class divide, rather a grand canyon, between the white professional class and the black laborers. This is very evident in the residential settings. The white community mostly lives in modern houses, often in gated communities, while the black laborers live outside of town (and in some places reasonably hidden from view) in what can best be described as “slums” or “shanty towns”, or in more politically correct terms ,”informal settlements” and “squatter camps”, as depicted here:

Most of the area’s that have white settlements, such as the valley’s with vineyards, have one of these “slum” camps nearby for the laborers. Note, I wasn’t able to photgraph these very well because, quite honestly, I felt awkward and more than a bit embarassed driving my big rig stopping to photograph these camps with the many onlookers. So, you will have to trust that the picture above was repeated many times.

Back to a more postive note! Leaving wine country and heading north, I traveled through several vineyard-filled mountain valleys on some pretty “fun” mountain roads, as shown here:

Gussy would have “enjoyed” this drive – ha! Gradually, as I drove north the landscape got drier and drier, as evidenced by the semi-arid desert vegetation and almost complete lack of human habitation, and I transitioned into what is called the Great Karoo ecosystem on my way to Karoo National Park. But I don’t want to spoil you with a description of the Karoo just yet, so you will have to tune in again tomorrow after I spend a day exploring the Park!

After 4 days of running from shop to shop trying to get my vehicle alignment problem solved, I have finally left Cape Town and am on the road north to the Great Karoo ecosystem and Karoo National Park – and points north. More on that to come. For now, suffice it to say that the Green Dragon is in good working condition and ready for the long haul – vehicle buffs can ask me about the details later. Cape Town really is a beautiful city situated in a spectacular landscape setting, but after driving in city rush hour 4 times over the past few days I am happy to be leaving the city for the bush.

I left Cape Town mid afternoon so I couldn’t make it all the way to Karoo National Park; instead I made it into the vineyard hill country outside of Cape Town to the north. This landsape consists of beautiful rolling hills covered in thousands of acres of vineyards backed up against some rugged and rocky mountains – the combination makes for a beautify setting, as shown here:

Most of the vineyards are estates with housing, processing buildings, tracks and tracks of vineyards, and very imposing entrance gates with guards. Here is one of the very less imposing gates that I was able to quickly pull off the road in time to photograph:

I decided to stop for the night at a more or less randoly selected campsite en route to the Great Karoo that I selected from my iOverlander app. Turns out I found a nice little gem of a site (Leef’n Biki) situated on a vineyard in the Jonkershoek Valley outside of the town of Stellenbosch – which is famous for its wine making. There are only 4 sites, but I am the only one here so it’s peace and quiet for me tonight. As you can see in the photo below, it’s just a grassy patch with some trees next to a pond, but it’s surrounded by vineyards and high mountains. Here is my little camp spot:

I did say “peace and quiet”, didn’t I? Well, here is another mystery audio short of my “peace and quiet” tonight:

Any quesses you wildlifers? There are two dominant sounds/species. The loudest sound coming from a single individual is a Red-knobbed Coot that looks just like our north American coot . The background chorus of “clicking” sounds are a whole pile of Clicking Stream Frogs. Not a bad background chorus to play my flute to – which I did! Bill, wish you were here as I could have really used that guitar accompanyment.

Next stop, the Great Karoo! Not sure if I will have cell service or no, so it may be a few days until you hear fro me. No Rick, I have not been eaten by lions; although there are lions in the Karoo.

First, a shout out of thanks to those of you that have replied to my previous posts. It’s great to hear from you; it gives me a sense of satisfaction knowing that I am not just writing this blog to hear myself talk to myself.

My arrival to Cape Town late on May 4th initiated what I thought would be a couple days of frenzied activity on my part to get ready for my overland trip, including getting a South African sim card for my mobile hotspot so that I can communicate with the world while in SA (you are the beneficiaries), going to the ATM and getting lots of Rand for my expenses while in SA, getting acquainted with my “Green Dragon” and all its features (which you can read all about on the Vehicle page of this site), shopping for some additional desired camping supplies (such as a nice reclining camp chair for the hours spent in camp relaxing during the middle of most days – nothing like a comfortable camp chair for this purpose), and stocking up on household supplies and groceries.

Now, I did tell you what it means to say “it’s Africa”, didn’t I? Well, if not, it means, expect that everything – even the simplest things sometimes – will likely take a little (or a lot) longer. I experienced my first “Africa” hurdle shortly after arriving and meeting up with my Green Dragon. After driving it briefly I quickly realized that it is badly in need oif a frontend alignment and wheel balance — can’t drive the distance I am going to drive with a bad alignment. Well, my Green Dragon is an older vehicle (2012) and it’s seen a few rugged miles, so it is not too surprising that an alignment and balance would be needed. After 1 shop tried and failed to complete the alignment, claiming the adjusting bolts were “frozen”, another shop gave up before even trying, another sent me to yet another shop, who sent me yet to another shop, who said they could do it but because it was 1 hour from the early 2 pm closing time on Saturday, that I would have to come back Monday morning for the job. So, what should have been a couple hours in the morning on Saturday turned into a full day of running around and getting essentially nowhere, and now a “forced” stay in Cape Town of another day (or two or three if things go the way they could go – read on to see the outcome). So, as my son said in his reply to a previous post, “Hakuna Matata”. No worries, just relax and enjoy where you are.

With that being said, I did just that. As I write this post, I am lying comfortably atop my Green Dragon in the pop-up roof tent on the coast of Cape Point on the breathtaking penninsula outside of Cape Town listening to the following:

Can you guess what it is? You guessed it, nesting African penguins in the bushes right beside my vehicle. The young nestlings are whining constantly (for food I suspect) in a high pitched wine that sounds like, well, baby puppies whining or whimpering. I can’t seem to capture the audio of the nestlings with my voice recorder or I would share. Periodically the adults, who must be guarding them closely, chime in with a duet of wonderfully varied coos, gurgles and brays that quickly rises to a crescendo and then trails off slowly, with the whole chorus lasting just a few seconds – as you heard above. The closest sound that comes to mine to me is braying donkeys. What does it sound like to you? Imagine this on a backdrop of gentle waves crashing, more like caressing, the rocky shoreline below, which isn’t audible in this recording – sublime! Don’t you wish you were here? Here is a picture of my overnight parking/sleeping spot at the end of an ocean-front street – yes, iOverlander listed it as an undesignated camping spot and there were no signs to say otherwise, so what the hell.

Here is the bush to the left of the vehicle (not visible in phote above) and the entrance to the penguin nest.

You know you are not in Kansas anymore when you come across a road sign like the following:

The next day was Sunday, so nothing could be done except enjoy the Cape. So, I took a drive down and around Cape Point and the Cape of Good Hope, which are part of Table Mountain National Park that occupy the mountain highlands and tip of the Cape penninsular. Most of the coastline and lower hills above are developed but still quite beautiful as in the following pictures:

Hiked out to Cape of Good Hope which is almost the southern tip of Africa (not quite, as there is another cape to the east that jutts south a little farther). Beautiful scrub-dominated mountainous headlands as shown here:

Came across some of these guys (gals actually) up close and personal in the scrublands just above the bluffs in the picture above of Cape of Good Hope (not what I was expecting to see in this landscape, but fun nonetheless):

OK, there is more to the neverending Green Dragon story that is still in progress as of now – which is Monday night, but I am running out of battery and want to get something posted, so stay tuned for what I hope to be a final wrap up on the vehicle issue tomorr. Cheers!

As you are probably already aware (if you read my previous posts), my 1^st country on this overland trip is South Africa (SA). Before I begin my overland journey through the inland of SA it is worth sharing a few factoids about this country to put things in better context and to educate myself (and you, if needed) a little about this corner of the world. Sorry if this seems a bit like school, but I want to share a little of what I learned from my research; hopefully you will find it as interesting as I do.

• As you can see in the map above, SA is the southern-most country in Africa, located between the latitudes 22-33 degrees south, which in terms of distance from the equator is the southern hemisphere equivalent to, say, Florida in the northern hemisphere.
• Roughly 3 times the size of Texas.
• Roughly 60 million people, compared to ~332 million in the U.S..
• 11 official languages (yikes), including Afrikaans, English, Northern Sotho, Xhosa, Zulu, Southern Sotho, Setswana (Tswana), Tsonga, Venda, Swati, Ndebele.
• Government is a parliamentary republic with executive, legislative and judicial branches, much like the U.S., except that the legislative branch is a parliament consisting of the National Assembly (similar in many, but not all, ways to the U.S. House of Representatives) and the National Council of Provinces (similar in many, but not all, ways to the U.S. Senate), and the president is elected by the Parliament (not directly by the people, as in the U.S.).
• Currency is the Rand.
• Major exports include gems (diamonds) and precious metals (gold), ores (iron), vehicles, mineral fuels including oil and coal briquettes.
• Modern humans have lived at the southern tip of Africa for more than 100,000 years and their (our) ancestors for some 3.3 million years.
• Suffered a sad, but all too common, European colonization history. The Portuguese were the first Europeans to explore SA in the mid-15^th century but only established trading posts on the coast and never actually colonized the continent. Later, the Dutch colonized SA in 1652 at what is today Cape Town and subsequently gradually expanded their occupation and displacement of the first nation peoples. Later, beginning in 1795, the British invaded SA and forced the Dutch, known as the Boer, to colonize even further inland. Following the discovery of gold and diamonds in the late 19^th century, the British defeated the Boers in a war to control most of the emerging country, and eventually in 1934 it became a sovereign nation state within the British Empire. Thankfully, the monarchy came to an end in 1961 and SA became the independent Republic of SA. Sadly, however, the white minority rule government was based on a policy of apartheid in which the first nation peoples had little human rights and no political power, until apartheid was finally abolished in 1994, at which time the country became a truly representative democratic republic.
• On the positive side, did you know that SA is the largest producer of macadamia nuts in the world?
• Currently, SA is the only country in the world that has voluntarily dismantled its nuclear arsenal – way to go SA!
• Has the oldest wine industry outside of Europe and the Mediterranean – perhaps I’ll spend some more time in SA tasting the wines on my next trip!
• Has ~9% of its total land area devoted to national parks, reserves and wildlife management areas – could do much better, I think!

OK, that’s it for my brief summary of some cool facts about South Africa, now let’s begin exploring this awesome country! But first, I still need you to meet my “green dragon” before I can actually start exploring – stay tuned.