Eastern Cape 2009 - Mountain Zebra National Park

It took us a couple of days to travel here as we'd decided to stick to the gravel roads. As soon as we left the Drakensburg foothills the land became much flatter and drier and the gravel roads were mostly straight and easy to drive on. Although it means driving more slowly it's possible to stop almost anywhere, for example when we saw mongooses, buck or birds.

As we approached Craddock, the nearest town to the Park, the landscape became more hilly and we could see the Bankberg mountains in the distance. It's at the eastern end of the Karoo

Mountain zebra are different from the ones seen in most game parks ( Burchell's zebra) and were saved from extinction by the setting up of this park.

Mountain Zebra

Burchell's Zebra

We saw lots of animals in the park, mainly on the upland plains. They were used to vehicles so we were able to get quite close to them.

Sprinbok

Ostrich

Wildebeest

Red Hartebeest

Pale Chanting Goshawk

Springbok

Blesbok

Ground Squirrels

At the campsite there were a couple of families of whitebrowed sparrow-weavers. They seemed to magically appear as soon as we were eating... This one had a ring on its leg and was the tamest of the lot.

We spent a couple of hours in Craddock. This street has nearly 30 restored 19th century settler cottages, many of which are available for B&B. We were able to have a look around one of them inside - very Victorian.

Mount Currie Nature Reserve
Rhodes
Mountain Zebra National Park
Graaff-Reinet
Baviaanskloof
Addo Elephant National Park
Hogsback
Diary - Word document

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