Safari at the Mapungubwe National Park

This morning we wake up early, prepare breakfast and then we are ready to go, today we do not have to load the car because we will sleep here again tonight, it is comfortable and above all it allows us to leave immediately.

We are in the Mapungubwe National Park in South Africa, on the border with Zimbabwe and Botswana; we are impatient to explore it because, even if it is a park that is often ignored by International travelers, it offers unique landscapes and good sightings.

We leave by our Dr. Livingtone and we pass in the canyon between the rocks that we preceded last night, it is always beautiful but with the light of the sunset it has a lot more charm.

Once we get to the main road, that makes a ring around the park, we turn right and start our sightings with a beautiful .go-away bird that shows off on a dry branch.

We follow the road, we are directed to the elevated Boardwalk, but suddenly, to our right, we see some figures in the bushes: a wonderful family of elephants that are eating, while they are walking to go to the river.

We stop a bit to observe them, they are really beautiful, there are also some puppies, including a really small one, it is too cute, he first plays with a sprig, then he has inflated the ears to a bush; when they are puppies the elephants are too cute and funny.

A male specimen, that was in the vicinity of the herd, begins to observe us with a little too much insistence, even if we are far away it is better to move a bit before making it nervous; in fact, immediately after it resumed its walk towards the river, munching a sprig of a bush.

We arrive at the elevated boardwalk, we park the car inside a wooden fence, it seems that they did it to protect the cars and visitors from the elephants; but on one side the fence was knocked down, in fact, if an elephant wanted, it would take very little time and a minimum effort to take it down.

We take the suspended wooden walkway, it is not very high, it is about 5 meters above the ground, in practice we are lifted from the ground but we are below the foliage of the trees.

In some places there are wooden benches, they have been positioned to allow visitors to stop to admire the landscape and the animals that go to the river; in fact, the runway runs along the course of the Limpopo river, almost all of its length, that in this period of the year is little more than a trickle of water, but during the rainy season it must be impressive.

Here are the elephants! They are down to the river to drink, they are many, they seem more than a family, in fact, when they leave, they take different directions; we made it just in time to see them, if we had arrived half an hour later we would not have seen them, but we know now, the safari is also a matter of luck.

We go back to Dr. Livingstone and leave again, the Mapungubwe National Park, as well as hosting several animals, has spectacular scenery, in addition to the rock formations, it also houses the majestic baobabs, certainly not the Baobabs of Baines in Botswana, but they are just as beautiful and some are reallymajestic.

We arrive at the Confluence viewpoint but we do not stop, we will return here in the afternoon; here tonight there was the NedBank people camp, who probably did team building or something similar and now there are still all their tents and a giant tarp, we’ll come back when no one is around.

We continue our safari and see several baboons, many squirrels, the rock hyrax, many impala, that here seem to be much quieter than usual, probably due to the fact that there are no predators.

We also spot a beautiful starling that we had never seen before: the Meve's starling; while on the rocks there are some klipspringers that jump graceful.

We arrive at the Zebra Pan, there is still a bit of water, that is collected here during the rainy season, and then there are several waterfowl, such as the gray heron and giant egret, there are also several vervet monkeys and a small flock of red-billed quelea that move in unison as if it were a single living being.

We continue and arrive at the detour for the Khongoni loop, to travel it is necessary to have a 4x4 car, Dr. Livingstone is ready and we take this secondary track; in hindsight it does not seem to us a track where the 4x4 is indispensable, maybe just a slightly higher car is enough.

Along this ring route we spot some female kudus hidden among the dry bushes, we see some beautiful Southern yellow-billed hornbills, they are also well illuminated by the sun, we take some pictures and then leave again.

At a certain point we see a black silhouette on top of a hill yellowed by dry season drought, for a moment it seems to us the Osborne bull that you meet along the streets of Spain, but of course it is not possible; we look at it well: it is a solitary wildebeest standing there that seems to scan the horizon.

At one point we park and walk a short path that leads to a vantage point; when we arrive in front of us a spectacular view opens: lower down we see a lake on whose banks are several animals, both mammals and birds.

We scrutinize the landscape and then think that this is the ideal place to have lunch; we are alone, the structure has a thatched roof that protects us from the sun and the heat, the view is priceless, what do we want more?

Yesterday evening we prepared lunch, we just have to go and get everything from our fridge!

After lunch in this beautiful place, we return to the main road and our safari continues; this part of the park is less scenic than the Western area, but it is still very beautiful; here the landscape is more ambitious and we meet many zebras that usually love open spaces and grasslands.

We also spot a black chested snake eagle, perched on a tall branch of a tree, it is looking around, probably in search of a possible prey; at some point it takes flight and we admire it as it twirls.

We continue our tour along the main road that, at a certain point, runs along the border of the park; we pass the museum we visited yesterday and arrive at the main gate of the park.

From here we continue along the road that we traveled last night, we pass the detour to our cottage, and return to the boardwalk; we want to see if there is someone down at the river but this time we are not lucky, we wait a bit but nobody comes, so we go back to our car and proceed.

We go to the Confluence viewpoint, there is still someone who is disassembling the tents of those of the Nedbank, but they have almost finished; we park and take the path that leads to the various observation points.

In all there are four vantage points with a view of the confluence of the two rivers, the Limpopo and the Shashe; in this period there is little water, during the rains the two rivers and their confluence must be spectacular.

The wooden terraces are suspended in a vacuum and are positioned so that from the first one we can admire the sunrise, while from the last one the sunset, while the other two are in an intermediate position.

The path that connects all the terraces is about 1.5 km long, it is an easy path that anyone can walk; we take time at each terrace to admire the view and take pictures; we pause a bit more on the terrace of the sunset and we wait for the sky to color with warm hues, even if for the sunset it is a bit early.

We go back to our car and drive back to our cottage, we go to the terrace and, while we watch the baboons chasing each other on the trees near the rocks, we wait for the sunset and relax a bit.

Today was a wonderful day, we loved the Mapungubwe National Park, it is perfect for spending time in nature and for good sightings.