Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park General Information

[Lisbeth]

Let's hope that things will change in the right direction. Right now people are dying in the streets of India and the last count was 320.000 infected in 24 hours

[Richprins]

Mello!

Ja, India in bad shape...

[Lisbeth]

Border posts reopen in Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park

Posted by Anita Froneman on 4 August 2022

South Africans can once again cross the Botswanan borders within the Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park. As of Monday, 1 August the following border posts have been re-opened, SANParks announced:

Twee Rivieren (RSA) 07h30 – 16h00
Mata Mata 08h00 – 16h30

The following regulations apply:

Guest must overnight a minimum of two nights anywhere in the Park when entering from one country and exiting into another country.
Guests entering at Twee Rivieren must clear Customs and Immigration at Twee Rivieren before proceeding to Mata Mata.
When entering Mata Mata, South African Customs and Immigration must be cleared at Twee Rivieren.
Day visitors from Mata Mata must show their passports to the Namibian Customs officials.

Note: Sendelingsdrift border post in |Ai-|Ais/Richtersveld Transfrontier Park remains closed until further notice.

https://www.getaway.co.za/travel-news/b ... tier-park/

[nan]

how sad it is.....

https://www.facebook.com/martin.bacsak/ ... 0744597443

[popimg=]

lot, lot of fires everywhere

[Mel]

Yeah, I saw that too. And I don't really understand how. When it was the dry years, it did burn as well, but not to that extend.
Now that the Kgalagadi had good rains in two consecutive years, the are fires everywhere.

[Lisbeth]

Are they properly equipped to face fires?

[nan]

...... properly equipped.... in the desert

around logements +/- and with sand roads (parre-feu) its works fine (I was at Grootkolk with fire, thank you sand road ), but animals don't live in the camps...

there is a map of the fire on FB, all the park seems to be in in fire

[nan]

https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=10 ... 0744597443

[nan]

burnt areas

[Mel]

Back from an 18-day trip in the Kgalagadi and can firmly state that every visit is different. First of all, there was torrential rain in some parts of the park (it was claimed that Polentswa had received 100 mm in 24 hours, e.g.) in the night from the 2nd to the 3rd April. We were meant to go up to Grootkolk on the 3rd and the roads in the uppper Nossob were flooded so much on some stretches that Nossob would only allow people with a proper 4x4 AND a booking for Grootkolk, Gharagab or Polentswa up north. As a consequence, there are huuuge detours into the riverbed (well, they were there before, but got kinda more driven into). What the rain also brought were moths. Thousands and thousands of moths. You couldn't switch a light on or else you would have had a gigantic lampshade made of moths.
On top of the rain the temperatures were rather coolish for this time of the year. We didn't experience many days above the 30°C mark which made it pleasant throughout the day, but outright cold in the mornings and after sundown. As a result of it, game viewing was challenging, to put it mildly.
Over the first few days we hardly saw any raptors. They returned in week two with masses of lanner falcons, kestrels and pale chanting goshawks. Only saw 3 bateleurs and the martial eagles kept their distance. Hardly any black-shouldered kites and only a few pygmy falcons. Red-necked falcons and tawny eagles were in decent numbers. The rest of those that we usually got to see - nada.
Since we're at it: We didn't see a single meerkat! And not for the lack of looking for them. We know where they live. They just didn't come out. Also no Cape fox, no brown hyena, no leopard! I also couldn't find a single owl during our game drives And I looked hard at the trees, trust me. Sightings in general were fleeting... one minute there, gone the next. Only a few animals hung out for a bit longer. Catrin and her grown cubs, for example, put on a good show for a few days in the lower Nossob. They eventually even ended up just before Twee Rivieren.
We had two stays at Grootkolk - one with 6 nights and one with originally 3 nights. But during the first six nights all we got to see at the waterhole were two jackals and an oryx at night, so we cut one of our 3 nights for the second stay as we managed to grab an additional night at Kieliekrankie. Apart from GK and KK we also stayed at Urikaruus and had lion sightings in all 3 camps. A male lion came to GK waterhole during dinner time on our second stay, 3 lionesses came to KK waterhole - also at dinner time. And the best sighting was at 2.20 am when a pride of 8 lions woke us up with noises that made us and even Jacques think "spotted hyena".
The riverbeds on both sides were filled with large herds of oryx, wildebeest, springbok and even hartebeest. Never saw so many than on this trip. And ostriches. You wouldn't believe the amount of ostriches we saw. And also in big herds (When appearing together in numbers above 20 you can't really call them a flock anymore, can you ) Some males had two wives and therefore the families sported chicks of different sizes. Never seen that before either.
Our highlights were 7 different cheetahs, most of them on more than one ocassion; four honey badgers - of which one was a baby being taken to a different den by its mother; one good lion sighting because there was a cute cub; a rock monitor that didn't run away like they usually do when you approach; the pretty tame pale chanting goshawk at Kieliekrankie; a tiny little gecko baby in our bathroom at Grootkolk; a black scorpion feeding on moths - also at GK; watching the mongoose and squirrels at Urikaruus and some water birds.