Mountain Zebra National Park

Camping R138pp

Park size: 284 ㎢ Location: Eastern Cape of South Africa, near Cradock

Tucked away in the Bankberg mountains near Cradock you will find one of the gems of the Eastern Cape, Mountain Zebra National Park. Defined by its savanna habitat and the abundance of the Mountain Zebra, this park is a must see. The beauty of visiting Mountain Zebra National Park is that the park is small enough for you to be able to explore the whole park but still big enough to house a variety of wildlife. The park has 3 distinct habitats: open plains, woodlands and a mountainous area and this makes for great diversity in the scenery of your game drives. Mountain Zebra houses everything from small, cute animals like squirrels to large, powerful game such as buffalo; large cats may also be on the menu so keep an eye out for Lion, Leopard and Cheetah. Getting there Drive through Cradock on the N10, take the turnoff onto the R61 out of Cradock and then follow the SAN Parks signs to the park. The road will become dirt but it is easily accessible by all vehicles. Drive through the park gates and follow the road to reception, which is only a few kilometers down the road, here you will find the campsite as well as the chalets. If you are staying any of the remote accommodation I assume you will still need to check in at reception before moving on to your alternate accommodation. The Campsite The campsite was lovely: there is a walk up the mountain that starts at the campsite which has a great view. The campsite itself offers plenty of shade and lots of bird life: the whitebrowed sparrow-weavers and the Pied Starlings came so close you could almost touch them, which was great because we had a 15 month old toddler with us who was captivated by all the birds. The ablutions are positioned well in the centre of the camping area and are easily accessible from all campsites. There is a large kitchen with sinks for doing dishes, and has a fridge and deep freeze, there is also a laundry room in case you need to do some washing.

Season temperatures can be quite extreme: make sure in summer that you have lots of suncream and liquids to keep you hydrated; but in winter the park is cold so make sure that you are prepared with warm garments. We camped in September and the few nights we spent camping where very different from each other: the first 2 nights were freezing and reached temperatures around zero, however, on the third night we found ourselves peeling layers off as the temperature was nowhere near freezing. Rather be safe that sorry, camping when you are very cold is not such a great experience.

1. Huddling round the campfire to keep warm. 2. Campsite at Sunset

Things to do - Walk up the hill: there is a short walk to the top of the hill that starts in the campsite. It is a great way to get outside and get a great view of your surroundings. The walk is not very long and suitable for all fitness types. - Self-drive game drives: Most of our game drives were not very fruitful in terms of big game but we did see quite a bit of springbok, wildebeest and zebra. Ordinarily this would have been disappointing, however, most of our game driving was done with a toddler which changed the game viewing experience. He was so excited to see every animal that we got excited too. It is fantastic that a little person seeing these things for the first time can be as excited to see a squirrel as he was to see the secretary bird flying in front of the car. Some highlights to our game drives were: * watching two Gabar Goshawks hunting a Greater Double-collared Sunbird. The sunbird was so quick, darting in and out of the acacia trees, keeping itself protected deep within the thorns but unfortunately as it darted to the next tree one of the Goshawks managed to catch it. *on one long afternoon drive, not even 5 minutes into our drive, we came across a cheetah with 3 cubs. The sighting was so quick we barely had time to get our cameras out. They crossed the road and were gone, disappeared into the bush alongside the road, not to be seen again. What a fantastic sighting! We thoroughly enjoyed the drives in the park even though we didn’t see as much as we would have liked. Mountain Zebra is a beautiful park with such a variety of landscape that game driving just to see the landscape is as enjoyable as seeking out wildlife.

1. Mountain Zebra 2. View of the Mountains 3. Baby springbok

- Private game drives: Mountain Zebra offers private game drives led by one of the park’s rangers and one of the nice things about the park being smaller is that the game drive vehicles are smaller too which means less people go on the drive and so the drive is a little more personal. They do however, need a minimum of 4 people to do a game drive unless you pay for the extra people. - Meals at the restaurant: located at reception is a sweet little restaurant that serves 3 meals a day. We ate dinner there on one of the nights, as we were too lazy to braai, and the food was lovely and fairly reasonably priced. The restaurant has a bush-lodge feel to it and is not a chain restaurant like in some of the bigger parks. If you live in the Eastern Cape this is a great place to frequent as the proximity makes this an easy holiday destination or weekend getaway. Multiple trips to the park throughout the year would mean that you can experience the park in different growth seasons (depending on the rain), this will also change the wildlife and bird-life that you will see.