WE are still in the KwaZulu Midlands this week, doing a virtual meander around this green and pleasant place but rather than enjoying its gentle nature and manicured good looks, lets take a look at its wilder side. With quite an interesting selection of smallish but lovely nature and game reserves, the Midlands area has plenty to offer nature lovers. For a start there is Ezemvelo KZN Wildlife Wagendrift Nature Reserve near Estcourt, surrounding the dam of the same name. It has a pretty camping area where we have spent the odd night on our way to other places and it has walking trails that offer access to wild areas alongside the Bushmen’s river.
Primarily a popular venue for boating and fishing, it is a pretty spot and a pleasant place to enjoy bit of (fairly tame) nature.
I do, however, prefer another Midlands game reserve that is situated around a dam. Spioenkop Nature Reserve, on the shores of Spioenkop Dam, is also administered by Ezemvelo KZN, but it has a much wilder feel than Wagondrift. It also offers dramatic mountain views and, in summer, large flocks of Amur falcons, those charming little raptors you often see strung out along the telephone lines alongside KwaZulu-Natal roads. It was quiet when we visited it about a year ago but it is also a popular spot for fishermen and boating enthusiasts and I should imagine both of its camping areas could be pretty full at times.
Spioenkop isn’t grand in the sense of our wild and wonderful Kruger National Park and its ilk but it is an absolutely delightful little piece of wilderness, a narrow strip of rolling thornveld, typical of the northern KwaZulu-Natal landscape, set around the sparkling dam, with lovely views of the nearby mountains. When we were last there the sweet thorns (Acacia karroo) were in flower, their spiky branches covered with bright yellow pompoms. On that visit we only spent two days in the reserve but it was enough time to explore it fairly thoroughly and to enjoy the lovely scenery and good birding and the game viewing. It is always great to see big herds of eland, those huge, ghostly, rather mystical antelope that feature so much in San rock art.
There were also plenty of impala, red hartebeest, zebra, a lone jackal and quite a few steppe buzzards, birds that, like the Amur falcons, only spend summer with us.
My very favourite Midlands reserve, though, is the varied, interesting and scenically striking Weenen Game Reserve, also one of Ezemvelo’s natural jewels. It is situated near the towns of Colenso and Weenen. We have spent a couple of short but thoroughly enjoyable visits to this wild corner of the Midlands and it has become one of our favourite smaller South African reserves, not least because it has such a classic Out-of-Africa feel about it.
It is a wonderful conserved area of about 5 000ha of rolling grasslands and undulating thornveld, craggy hills, soggy waterways and spongy vleis where tall thatching grass grows. In the south of the reserve the scenery is more dramatic. Here the Bushman’s River makes its way through a steep, thickly-vegetated valley, at the bottom of a magnificent escarpment. A viewsite perched on a craggy rise near the Umtunzini picnic site overlooks the river valley.
While Weenen is green and pretty in summer, I think I prefer it in the colder months when its drab wintry tones of khaki, bronze olive green highlight it rugged, dramatic nature. Its camping area is attractive and comfortable, set in a grassy basin surrounded by thorn-tree dotted hill. The roomy sites are like linked fairy circles in the long grass. There are plenty of shady trees in the camping area, many of them shapely paper bark acacias. The camp overlooks a dam and a swampy wetland that attract many of the reserve’s winged and four-legged residents so campers can often enjoy quality game viewing from their tent verandahs, In-camp birding is good too.
In fact the whole reserve is an excellent little birding spot offering an interesting mix of about 250 species.
An impressive line-up of mammals have been reintroduced into the reserve or have recolonised this little haven subsequent to it being declared a game reserve. Species that call Weenen home include giraffe, red hartebeest, eland, zebra, kudu, ostrich, common reedbuck, grey duiker, bushbuck, steenbuck, black-backed jackal, hyena and mountain reedbuck. There are some lovely picnic spots in the reserve including the Umtunzini Picnic Site that offers the viewpoints overlooking the Bushman’s River valley and the surrounding rocky hills. A furrow leading from the river to the nearby town of Weenen is a reminder that this was once Voortrekker country. It was built three years after the town of Weenen was laid out by trekker settles in 1838.
The Mfomfeni viewsite and the Umthombe Hide are also worth stopping at to enjoy the scenery and to do some game watching. At the heart of the reserve, however, is the shady, bird-filled Sanctuary picnic area. The fence around it has been removed but the attractive stone and wrought-iron entrance has been left standing to remind visitors that Weenen people had set the area aside as a bird sanctuary as part of the 1938 Voortrekker centenary celebrations.
Well-treed and offering panoramic views, the site, once known as Centenary Park has evolved into this now well-established game reserve.
My favourite route, is the Tierskloof Road, which hugs the edges of the densely wooded Tierkloof Gorge named for the many leopards that once called it home. The rock formations are striking along there and with all sorts of interesting trees, like huge boer-beans, cabbage trees, figs and naboom euphorbias, it is a really good tree-hugging route. Tierskloof is the most scenic of all the park’s many interesting tourist roads.
Another route that takes you back into Weenen’s past is the Mona Drive 4×4 track to a little dam that usually offers some good birding, This attractive drive follows the meandering route of the now-defunct narrow gauge railway line between Estcourt and Weenen. It was surveyed in 1902 and was in commission by 1907. In contrast to those creaking wagons, still probably in use at that time, how modern its small Garret-type steam locomotive must have seemed.
Another road within the reserve has historical links as it follows a section of the old wagon trail between Weenen and Estcourt, built by the trekkers when they were first developing the territory. Summer or winter, Weenen Game Reserve is always worth seeing, even if you only have time for a short day visit. Next time you plan a little Midlands meander, make sure you add a bit of its wilder side into the mix by visiting these lesser known natural havens.
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