Mountain zebras and breath-taking scenery
Karoo National Park
The Karoo National Park (KNP) is spectacular. It is quite different from the other 20 reserves in the SANParks stable.
No, I have not been to all the other parks in South Africa, but the KNP is distinctly unusual as it is arguably the only one where the striking scenery will be the lasting memory you have of this park.
The photos I have included in this Real Safari Newsletter do not come close to doing justice to the breath-taking landscapes of the KNP. Only an extraordinary photographer could convey the sense of awe felt when taking in the vast open spaces surrounded towering sedimentary strata laid down over millions of years
Ilza and I had just attended our daughter’s graduation in Cape Town and were planning our 930 km return journey to Makhanda. The KNP is situated in the Karoo (semi) Desert just outside the town of Beaufort West and is close to the halfway point between Cape Town and Makhanda.
Neither of us had ever been to the KNP, so it seemed that it would be a convenient over-night stop. We are always keen to see new animals in a new environment.
As always, I checked online to see pictures of animals we could expect to see at our destination and as the photos were few and far between, I did not set my expectations too high.
The park has half-a-dozen rough trails that can only be accessed in 4X4 vehicles, but for the rest of us, we can only drive two ‘loops’ and the main road from the gate to the reception area. That said, both ‘loops’ are well worth the visit.
The Potlekkertjie Loop is 45kms long and is rated at two-and-a-half hours while driving below the official speed limit of 40kms/h. We took around four hours because we stopped to take photographs often; we got out of car to explore the Doornhoek picnic spot and both lookout points on the Klipspringer’s Pass. I was also exceptionally cautious as we drove the narrow road through that unnerving pass.
The Lammertjiesleegtre Loop is only ten km long and is supposed to take about 45 minutes to complete. We were the only vehicle on the entire loop and once again, we took much longer because we stopped often and explored the beautiful Bulkraal picnic spot which has well-maintained ablution facilities and a great swimming pool.
So what can you expect to see at the Karo National Park?
We regularly go to the Addo Elephant Park (AEP) so it is inevitably the yardstick that we use to compare game reserves. It is a somewhat pointless exercise when comparing it to the KNP but here goes anyway.
Addo is much bigger, has more roads and more animals. The AEP road-network also supports more traffic than the KNP. The animals at Addo are more accustomed to seeing vehicles so they often come much closer to your car than in the KNP. I have posted many photographs of herds elephants strolling by only a few metres from my car.
This does not happen in the KNP. First of all because the park has no elephants and secondly because the other animals seem more wary of humans and their noisy machines.
I was surprised to read that the KNP has 14 lions in an area where there did not seem to be very much prey. There aren’t that many prey species and since most of the park is semi-desert, you would think that prey animals could see lions coming from a long way off.
Less than two years ago, the KNP had a population of 21 lions, but all the members of one pride had to be put down because they regularly escaped and killed livestock. SANParks put out a statement saying that they regretted the decision but were afraid that the lions could threaten humans.
Possibly the most famous lion in South Africa, Sylvester, escaped from the KNP twice. In 2015, he managed to evade recapture for 24 days as he led his pursuers on a 370 km break-out. When he escaped again the following year it was decided to transfer him to a game reserve with more formidable fencing. He currently lives in one of the Addo sections with a coalition partner known as Fielies. You can read more about him, here.
We never saw lions at all on our stop-over but we did have several sightings of a species that I had never seen before – the mountain zebra. Most parks in the country have the Burchell’s zebra but only a few in the more arid parts of the country have the much rarer mountain zebra.
You might not immediately see the difference between the two species, but a short pause will tell you that they have very different markings. All zebras have unique striping patterns that make it possible to recognise each individual, but there are certain characteristics that make it possible to separate the species.
Mountain zebras have more closely spaced stripes on their bodies that do not cover their bellies but go all the way down their legs.
Stripes on Burchell’s zebras often go all the way around their bodies but tend to fade away on the lower parts of their legs. Burchell’s zebras almost always have lighter ‘shadow’ stripes between the darker lines.
The most unusual feature of the mountain zebras is their dewlaps – a small saggy fold on the under-side of their necks. I was quite surprised about this trait when I saw it on my photographs and confirmed its existence on several web sites.
We spotted mountain zebras several times during our stay and on each occasion they were in small groups of three to five animals. We are used to seeing Burchell’s zebras in larger herds of 20-30 in other parks.
KNP zebras are far more skittish than their relaxed counterparts in the Addo where they often stare into your eyes from less than two metres away.
Other animals we saw included a handful of springbok, several gemsbok (oryx), kudus, a large herd of over 30 eland, four klipspringers, a steenbok, many red hartebeest, a long thin brown snake (not sure what species), a yellow mongoose, a single meerkat, vervet monkeys and three black rhinos.
Conservation authorities discourage visitors from posting pictures of rhinos because they may be targeted by poachers. I am not posting pictures of rhinos on this Newsletter because they were simply too far to be photographed. A pair of binoculars confirmed the sightings but they were out of range of my camera lens.
KNP has a surprisingly rich diversity of birdlife with an official list of 249 species, but I am probably the worst birder in Africa. We definitely saw many ostriches in every corner of the park, a raptor that I feel sure was a goshawk and many other pretty birds.
In addition to the unusual wildlife and astounding scenery, it is worth taking a walk along the Fossil Trail – an outdoor exhibition providing an overview of the wealth of fossils found in the Karoo.
The entire Karoo was once covered by an enormous lake as part of the Gondwana super-continent at the South Pole. Over millions of years, many layers of sediment were deposited preserving flora and fauna fossils.
The Fossil Trail at the KNP displays several interesting Dicynodont bones that were uncovered in burrows where the pre-mammalians might have been able to keep safe during the Permian – Triassic extinction, 252 million years ago.
There are other trails in the main camp at KNP where visitors can go jogging, hiking or even mountain biking. However, there is a warning on the map they give you at reception. It says, “Lion may be potentially dangerous to people on foot”.
An electric fence surrounds the entire camp, but it is not very tall, instead it has strands spread out at an angle so that it is actually wider than it is tall. I am sure that a kudu could jump over it and a clever lion could probably do so as well if it thought things through.
I didn’t walk around at night.
The Karoo National Park is a marvellous reserve and I would love to spend a week there getting to know the place better. I would particularly like to have a 4X4 vehicle to drive on some of the more distant trails.
The staff are polite and efficient. The chalets are functional, yet immaculately clean and well maintained – best of all the shower has plenty of pressure.
Food at the restaurant is unpretentious but wholesome in an old fashioned way. They packed us burgers for a breakfast hamper to take on our morning drive. The hamburger patties were deliciously homemade – not the usual pre-packed frozen type, and the rolls were authentic ‘roosterbrood’ (toasted).
I would definitely recommend KNP to my South African friends who have experienced other parks and are keen to have a desert experience. On the other hand, I would not take foreign visitors there who feel they must see the ‘Big Five’ otherwise their trip has been a waste.
I hope you enjoyed the Karoo National Park as much as we did. Please tell your friends about the Real Safari Newsletter and encourage them to subscribe for a weekly drive on the wild side.
Wonderful!