Rough Guides - The Rough Guide to Game Parks of South Africa (Travel Guide eBook)

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NILE CROCODILE, KRUGER NATIONAL PARK

Contents

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Introduction to

Game parks of South Africa

South Africa is a large, diverse and incredibly beautiful country. It is home to a stunning collection of wildlife, much of which lives protected within the borders of the countrys bountiful game parks. The size of France and Spain combined, and roughly twice the size of Texas, South Africa varies from picturesque Cape Town and the Garden Route towns of the Western Cape to the raw subtropical coast of northern KwaZulu-Natal, with the vast semi-desert Karoo and Kalahari extending across its central plains, and the hulking sandstone cliffs of the uKhahlamba-Drakensberg at its elevated heart.

For many, South Africas most outstanding feature is its wildlife. Foremost among its quite wonderful game parks is the immense Kruger National Park , which ranks as one of Africas premier Big Five destinations. Elsewhere, Hluhluwe-iMfolozi harbours the worlds densest population of rhinos, the remote Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park protects a starkly beautiful dunescape inhabited by lions, leopards, cheetahs and a host of smaller carnivores, while the lakes and waterways of iSimangaliso Wetland Park are alive with hippos, crocs and aquatic birds.

For budget- and independent-minded travellers, a joy of South Africas many national parks and other public reserves is that most are well suited to self-drive safaris . The Kruger, for instance, must rank as the top DIY safari destination anywhere in Africa. Like most of the countrys other state- and provincially run reserves, it boasts a good network of surfaced or all-weather dirt roads along with affordable restcamps and campsites offering amenities suited both to first-time safarigoers and to more experienced hands.

South Africa is also a continental leader when it comes to private reserves . The many privately owned conservancies that share open borders with Kruger lead the pack when it comes to superlative guided Big Five viewing in open vehicles based out of luxurious lodges steeped in bush chic. And there are dozens of other such reserves dotted around the rest of country, from Tswalu in the deep Kalahari and Phinda in subtropical KwaZulu-Natal to Shamwari near Port Elizabeth and Gondwana on the Garden Route east of Cape Town.

Many visitors are pleasantly surprised by South Africas excellent infrastructure . Good air links and bus routes, excellent roads, and plenty of accommodation suited to all budgets make the country perfect for touring. Despite this, after 25 years of democracy, the rainbow nation is still struggling to find a new identity. Apartheid is dead, but its heritage still shapes South Africa in many ways and has left it as one of the worlds most unequal societies.

Culturally, South Africa doesnt reduce simply to black and white. More than eighty percent of the population comprises black Africans whose diverse cultural heritages are reflected in the existence of eleven official languages (and several more unofficial ones). White people of European descent make up just under nine percent of the population, split roughly evenly between those who speak English as a first language, and those who speak Afrikaans (a derivative of Dutch). There are a similar number of (mostly Afrikaans-speaking) Coloureds , the mixed-race descendants of white settlers, Africans and slaves from Southeast Asia, while 2.5 percent of the population is descended from indentured Indian labourers who came to KwaZulu-Natal in the late nineteenth century. Unsurprisingly, then, each of South Africas nine provinces has its own style of architecture, craftwork, food and sometimes dress.

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VIEWING AN ELEPHANT ON SAFARI

Fact file

• With a population estimated at almost 58 million people, South Africa has eleven official languages: isiZulu, isiXhosa, Afrikaans, English, Sepedi, Setswana, Sesotho, Xits
• The country is a multiparty democracy, the head of state being President Cyril Ramaphosa of the African National Congress (ANC). Parliament sits in Cape Town, the legislative capital, while Pretoria is the executive capital, from where the president and his cabinet run the country, and Bloemfontein is the judicial capital. Each of the nine provinces has its own government. South Africa has a 2850km
• South Africa has a 2850km coastline split between the Atlantic Ocean to the west and the Indian Ocean to the east. The two oceans meet at Cape Agulhas, the most southerly point in Africa. The interior rises to the uKhahlamba-Drakensberg, which is both the most extensive and the highest range in southern Africa, with several peaks topping 3400m.
• South Africa is listed as one of the worlds seventeen megadiverse countries thanks mainly to its flora, which includes 22,000 described species of vascular plant, sixty percent of then unique to this one country. It also boasts an impressive fauna including roughly 300 mammal, 850 bird and 350 reptile species.
• Despite a dramatic increase in rhino poaching since 2010, South Africa is far and away the worlds most important stronghold for these vulnerable giants. Indeed, the largest surviving populations of both black and white rhino live within its borders, representing around eighty percent of the worlds individual rhinos, of all five species!

Crime isnt the indiscriminate phenomenon that press reports suggest, but it is an issue. Really, its a question of perspective taking care, but not becoming paranoid. The odds of becoming a victim are highest in downtown Johannesburg, where violent crime is a daily reality; there is less risk in other cities, and less still in the most rural areas surrounding game reserves.

Where to go

While you could circuit South Africa and visit several scattered game parks in a matter of weeks, its more satisfying to focus on one or two specific regions, depending on the time of year and your interests. Broadly speaking, the countys game parks can be divided into five safari regions , all of which have much in common in terms of wildlife, but each with its own distinct character and pros and cons.

South Africas most established and popular safari destination is the Greater Kruger , which lies in the eastern lowveld of Mpumalanga and Limpopo provinces, half a day by car, or an hours hop by air, from the cities of Johannesburg and Pretoria. The regional focal point is the mighty Kruger National Park , which extends across an incredible 19,500 square kilometres of bushveld inhabited by scores of large mammals including the countrys largest single populations of all the Big Five (lion, leopard, buffalo, elephant and rhino). Kruger itself is relatively budget friendly, ideal for self-drive exploration, and so extensive that you could easily dedicate a fortnight to meandering from the bustling south to the remote and little-visited north. The national park also shares open boundaries with a number of concession lodges and private reserves that offer superlative all-inclusive upmarket guided safari packages within their own small corner of the vast Greater Kruger ecosystem.