Your Kruger National Park Guide - With Stories. Frans Rautenbach
Timbavati (seasonal)
»The Sweni / N’wanetsi river complex
»The Olifants
»The Letaba
»The Shingwedzi (seasonal)
»The Levubu (seasonal)
The greatest of these is the Sabie. Not only in terms of water volume, but also in terms of the variety of its fauna and flora (biodiversity). There is just about nothing you can see in the game reserve that you cannot see along or in the Sabie River.
The mere reading of the list of big rivers shows another thing: It explains why so many – especially older – rest camps are situated where they are. They lie on the banks of the big rivers, which also explains why so many of these camps are so popular: because there is so much game.
Later we’ll look at the routes you can plan for game watching. It’s no surprise they include many miles along the great rivers.
The main routes also run past many other water sources: wind pumps, boreholes, pans, streams, water holes… Watch the vegetation, nearby and afar. Keep an eye out for a green seam weaving through the grey on the horizon. It’s probably a river. Look for trees and plants that betray water sources: ilala palms, yellow fever trees, huilboerboon trees, reeds. Stop by the water holes along the way, or on the banks of a full river.
Find water. Water literally is life.
Principle Three: Food is life
If you know where the food is, you’ll know where the animals are – which means you need to know what they eat. Predators live off game such as impala, kudu, zebra and blue wildebeest. And each of these animals in turn eats certain types of vegetation. All of which means the vegetation of an area or region determines which herbivores and which predators are found there.
For that reason it helps to know which ecological regions are most suited to support the different herbivores and carnivores so you know where you have the best statistical chance of finding them.
Herbivores either live off grass or leaves or fruit, bulbs, roots and so on, or a combination of these. The large beasts of prey are normally interested in the first-mentioned two groups. These groups consist mostly of zebra, wildebeest and impala (normally grazers), giraffe and kudu (mainly browsers), and buffalo (both browsers and grazers).
The grazers mostly prefer the open savannahs with sweeter grass varieties, and the browsers prefer areas with perennial thorn trees – therefore the following areas on the ecological map:
»Knob thorn/marula savannah, which is a long, thin strip in the east running from Crocodile Bridge in the southeast to just north of N’wanetsi. This strip is one of the most beautiful areas of veld in the game reserve, with knob thorn-, marula- and leadwood trees with dispersed growth and patches of grass in between.
»Related to this is the Shingwedzi tree savannah with mopani, umbrella thorn and mustard trees with grass in between (both sides of the Shingwedzi and Mphongolo rivers).
»Sabie/Crocodile thorn thickets, the area along the Sabie from Skukuza to Lower Sabie, and from there in a southerly direction to Crocodile Bridge. Patches of sweet thorn, umbrella thorn, paper bark thorn and knob thorn trees with long grass in between.
»Thorn veld, roughly the area between Orpen and Satara, and also between Lower Sabie and Tshokwane (mainly on the western side of the road (H-1)).
Elephants eat the leaves of trees, and are found in all the above areas. But they in particular eat mopani leaves, and are therefore one of the types of animals found in mopani veld. The same applies to buffalo, which are also at home in this area. Although buffalo are largely grazers, they seek out the mopani veld probably because there is often shade under the mopani trees. They are also close enough to water so they can drink twice daily.
The vegetation on the banks of rivers differs markedly from plants on the more remote plains, which partly explains why there are almost always elephants along rivers. They love grazing in the riverside reeds and stripping the leaves off large perennial trees on the banks.
For the same reason river banks offer food to smaller game that often graze and forage there, such as kudu, impala, waterbuck, bushbuck, nyala, baboons and monkeys. River banks therefore form an exceptional habitat for leopards. In fact, if you really want to have a chance of seeing a leopard, drive the Sabie, Timbavati, N’wanetsi and Shingwedzi routes set out below.
So, to summarise: high concentrations of zebra, giraffe, blue wildebeest, elephant, buffalo and impala will occur in the savannahs and thorn veld areas, with accompanying predators. These areas more or less coincide with the rest camps in the southern half of the park: Crocodile Bridge, Lower Sabie, Skukuza, Satara and Orpen, as well as Shingwedzi in the north.
The largest part of the northern half is mopani veld, where mostly elephant and buffalo are found. That means there aren’t many large herds of impala, kudu, zebra and giraffe, but especially along the rivers in these areas the mopani trees give way, and a larger variety can be seen. So, if you drive north, it’s better to know what to expect.
The Shingwedzi river is a totally different story. In this area there are large prides of lions, which are drawn by the game along the rivers and the buffalo on the plains to the north of the camp. Shingwedzi also has considerable and impressive elephant herds. Sometimes the relative absence of food and water also determines what you can expect. Animals that are hardier and can survive under more difficult circumstances, such as eland, tsessebe, roan antelope and blue wildebeest, are often found here. North of Letaba, up to Pafuri, there is a strip of dry savannah with scant mopani growth. In the most northern part – especially in dry years – this transmutes into a desert-like sandy veld which stretches up to the Pafuri against the border.
This is a region for the game reserve-goer who is similar to these animals: a bit hardier and a little more patient than the ordinary game watcher. Here you must be prepared to sometimes drive 30 or 40 kilometres before seeing a large mammal, and then it might only be two eland in the distance, or a lone tsessebe against a rocky ridge.
Thorn veld/marula savannah
The green grass at Pafuri
1 Ask this guide at Hippo Pools for tips.
2 Lions in the 1930s
3 In the 1950s
4 “I think we’re gonna score, Bro.”
5 Elephants in the 1950s
Principle Four: You are not alone
“It is 5.30 in the morning. Two guys – both with bare hairy stomachs and towels around their middles – run into each other at the shaving mirror in the bathroom. They don’t know each other from a bar of soap.
“Morning…”
“Morning…”
“Looks like a nice day, don’t you think?”
Number two pulls his upper lip tight as the blade rasps over it. The men’s voices echo in the open area.
His companion scratches his grey chest hair. “Ja, it will probably be hot as hell this afternoon.”
Water