Amber Sky Creations

Mapungubwe – Picnic site, Confluence and River road

Posted on March 2, 2019June 15, 2020 by wilma

Besides the spectacular array of birds, the Eastern section of the park offers a lot to see and a lot to do for non-birders. There is the treetop walk, where you walk on a raised walkway inside the forest canopy, and have the opportunity to get up close and personal with some tree squirrels

Further down the road, you find a basic, but truly gorgeous picnic site with tables surrounded by young baobab trees. There is also a small tuck-shop, selling cool drinks and firewood

The path to the four confluence viewpoints start from this picnic site. The view are absolutely spectacular. Well worth a visit!

Of course, the fact that both the Limpopo and Sashe rivers were in full flood when we were there, served to make the views even more spectacular. Normally, you can expect to see the confluence of two wide, sandy river beds with a few standing pools of water. We were privileged to see the confluence of two large, fast-flowing rivers!

View over the confluence of the Limpopo and Sashe rivers

While at the viewpoints, one should also keep a lookout for the colourful flat-lizards that inhabit the rocky outcrops!

Further East of the viewpoints, you find the river road, where you will drive through a forest of massive Ficus and Njala trees.

Mapungubwe – spectacular beauty

Posted on March 1, 2019June 15, 2020 by wilma

The road through the Eastern section of the camp, from the gate to Leokwe camp… Well. We were told the park was beautiful. We were expecting to enjoy the scenery. But nothing prepared us for what we were about to see!

And then there are the baobabs – huge baobabs around every corner. Spectacular!

Mapungubwe: Duwweltjies and Quelias, February 2019

Posted on February 28, 2019June 14, 2020 by wilma

It’s no secret – we have been madly in love with Kruger ever since our first trip there together, back in 2006. But after all these years exploring Kruger, we decided that we need to spread our wings and explore other National Parks as well. So our first visit to a “new” park would be a week in Mapungubwe.

Planning this trip was very different from planning a Kruger trip. We know Kruger. We know what to expect, what is on offer, and what we want. We didn’t know anything about Mapugubwe, besides a little bit about its rich history and where it is located. After trawling the SANParks forum for a while, we ended up booking the first three nights in Leokwe, and the following 4 in the Limpopo Forest Tented Camp.

As it turned out, we were lucky enough to arrive at the park hot on the heals of several days of heavy rains. This meant that while we had mostly glorious weather, everything was drenched. The Limpopo and Shashe rivers were both in full flood. The veld alternated between long, abundantly seeding grasses that attracted swarms of Red-Billed Quelias, and riotous masses of flowering duwweltjies. And the Maloutswa hide… Oh my! We’ll get to that later…

First, lets start at the beginning – lunch-with-a-view at the cafe at the interpretive center.

Shipandane & Letaba Day 6: The end…

Posted on March 22, 2017June 14, 2020 by wilma

And so, the fateful day arrived – the day we had to leave the park.

The sun was up early, but – frustratingly – we couldn’t be out of the camp early. We needed to load the car, and we couldn’t get up earlier to do so, since hubby needed to be rested for the long road back to Pretoria.

We were ready to leave just after 7, but first, we wanted to continue the tradition we started on our last trip – driving through the camp with the GoPros recording, to make a video of the camp.

Then we dropped off the keys, and said goodbye to Letaba, while vowing to be back some day!

We took the main road to Phalaborwa gate. After looking for, but not finding the Hyena clan we say earlier, we turned into the S69. Because one cannot just drive straight to the gate!

The morning was quiet, with very little game around. At the Nhlanganini river crossing, we stopped. There was a Black Stork and a Hammerkop hunting in one of the pools to the left of the road.

As we sat watching them, we got a quick glimpse of another new lifer – a Black Coucal! And just to make the collection complete – a pair of Chestnut-backed Sparrow-Larks came down to drink, bringing our specie-count up to 97!

We continued on, turning into the S51, to take the long route to visit Sable one last time.

Once again, Sable dam didn’t disappoint – elephants, elephants and more elephants! Not wanting to get out the gate too late, we didn’t stay long. However – the herds had other plans for us! They were all over the bush in the vicinity of the hide, and some were blocking the road! Even after the road-blockers moved off, there were a hand full of elephants browsing next to the road, and every time we tried to pass, they would face us and their body language would be quite clear – stay away, we’re eating here! So we’d stop again. After a full hour, the largest one turned his back, and started sampling a different tree just a meter or two further from the road, and we took our chance. She still turned around and gave us a “look”, but by then we were already past her, and we only saw her flap her ears in annoyance in the rear-view mirror. Phew! We were free!

Too late, we realized that with all the adrenaline pumping, neither of us had thought to switch on a GoPro! We had no footage whatsoever of the entire experience!

Back on the tar road, we saw more vulture, they were some distance from the road, but we were able to identify two more species:

Lappet-faced Vulture
White-headed Vulture

We reached the gate just before 12, with our birding list at 99. But it wasn’t over yet!

We stopped in the parking area, for a last leg stretch before the long road home, and also to get some cool drinks from the shop, use the bathroom, and put away the cameras and GoPros.

And of course we weren’t about to ignore the birds at the gate, and added a few more:

Tawny-flanked Prinia
Southern Black Flycatcher
Southern Masked Weaver
Cut-throat Finch
Chinspot Batis

Final Bird count for the trip: 104. We beat our target with a full 29 species!

Final thoughts

About the hide:

Shipandane hide was brilliant. We will definitely be back. Next time I will try to time the trip for an earlier moon rise.

About Letaba:

Letaba was great, as was our bungalow. We enjoyed the camp very much, and will definitely be back. Next time I will try again for number 64, but I will be perfectly happy if I have to settle for 63 again. We had no complaints about it. It would be nice if the bungalows were upgraded to the standard of the one we had last time in Satara, but at the same time, there was something nostalgic about the green tiles and the too-low shower head. It’s Kruger, after all. If we wanted luxury, we would book into a lodge. The bungalow was spotlessly clean, and had everything we needed. We don’t ask for more than that in Kruger.

About the area:

The area around Letaba was stunningly beautiful. I don’t know if that is always they case, or how much of the beauty was due to the rains of December and January. As expected, wildlife wasn’t as abundant as further South, but the bird life exceeded our expectations.

About the weather:

The weather was far from brilliant – in fact, at times it was quite foul, but it failed to spoil the trip. If, as we did until a few years ago, we were focused solely on photography, the lack of good light would have been very frustrating. However, with birding in the mix, we were never bored.

Above all – this trip accomplished its primary goal. We arrived back home relaxed, refreshed, and fully recharged.

Shipandane & Letaba Day 5: Rain, birds, a kittycat and Sweet Light!

Posted on March 21, 2017June 14, 2020 by wilma

When we stuck our noses out of the bungalow on Tuesday, 21 March, it was still wet and dreary outside, but at least the wind had calmed down over night. Since we had decided to explore the S62 that afternoon, we wanted to keep the morning drive shorter. The S69 looked ideal, not least because it would also give us the opportunity to see if we can get another glimpse of the Hyena clan from the day before.

Unfortunately, the hyenas were no where in sight, and neither was anything else. It was just us, the clouds, the occasional few drops of rain and (thank goodness!) our flask of coffee! Fortunately, the scenery was still breathtakingly beautiful, so the drive was still accomplishing our primary purpose for this trip – relaxing and de-stressing!

An hour into the drive, at the Nhlanganini river crossing, we finally got one more bird specie – a Cinnamon Breasted Bunting. The smooth, exposed rocks in the river bed also begged to be photographed, so out came the wide angle…

A few minutes later, it started raining again. This time it looked like it would rain for a while, so we decided to rather head back to camp. However, just before we reached the camp, the rain cleared again, and the sun even made a feeble attempt to break through the clouds! Fortunately, we both firmly believe that a mind is of no use if you can’t change it. So we turned left and idled up the tar road along the river bed. First, we spotted two birds:

Lesser Grey Shrike
Barn Swallow

Then, Birding Bonanza! The kind of spot that most birders have experienced – where there just seems to be an unending number of species, all congregating in one place, and it seems you can sit there forever and keep spotting new species… We pulled off the road, shut off the engine, stuck the big lenses out the windows, and prepared to enjoy ourselves!

Rattling Cisticola
African Cuckoo
Marico Sunbird
Cardinal Woodpecker
White-bellied Sunbird
Black-backed Puffback
Southern Grey-headed Sparrow
Village Weaver
Long-billed Crombec
Brown-crowned Tchagra
African Paradise Flycatcher

Finally, after about two hours in one spot and way too much coffee, we decided that we needed to urgently return to camp… But we weren’t done yet – just before we reached camp, we spotted the one Bee-eater that we were still missing!

Southern Carmine Bee-eater

After a shortish break at the camp, we were off again. This time headed for the S62. It was on our “must-do” list for the trip, and this was our last afternoon drive, so it was an obvious choice.

We were barely out of the camp, when another car flagged us down, and told us there was a leopard in a tree about 7km up the S47. Now, who can skip that? Not us! We checked the time, calculated that we had enough time to go see the leopard and still do the S62, and we were off.

The leopard was sleepy and the light wasn’t very good, but we spent a while anyway, and took what photos we could, given the circumstances.

We also noticed something else – at the sighting, there were about three unmarked Landrover Defenders, all driven by people who were dressed and acting like guides, each with a few other people in the vehicle who looked and acted like one would expect of tourists. Could this be a commercial outfit, taking tourists into the park? Aren’t all professional guides supposed to have clear markings on their vehicles, or is that rule only for OSVs?

We didn’t spend too much time with the leopard, and soon we headed back to the S62. And what a treat it was! It was beautiful! The Longwe lookout was stunning, and the Engelhard dam… Wow.

We spent some time at the Engelhard dam making use of the first real sweet light on this trip. We got some nice photos of a hippo and a group of juvinile vervets playing in a massive fever tree, pausing every now and then to eat some tree gum.

We ran out of time much too soon, and had to head back to camp. We lingered on the bridge over the Letaba river, clinging to the last few minutes of our last full day in the park, and photographing two young Waterbuck bulls in the river bed, and bringing our bird lest to 94, with a Tawny eagle in the river bed, and a Giant Kingfisher on the bridge railing.