OVER the recent holidays, the astoundingly beautiful Mountain Zebra National Park was much in my thoughts as we’d spent a wonderful Easter weekend there two years ago.
And as we are doing a little virtual exploring of some of South Africa’s national parks to see what makes each of them them special, I thought we might stop in there this week.
I love the Karoo, so a park that showcases the scenic beauty of our arid heartland is always going to be special to me.
Gosh, but it was cold and wet that Easter, as only the mountainous regions of the Karoo can be; but we kept ourselves fairly warm, snug and dry in the sheltered little corner of the park’s delightful camping site.
As the name suggests some of the tourist roads take you high up into mountainous terrain and the icy wind, drenching showers, freezing drizzle and mist made the loftier sections very wintry indeed.
We’ve paid this scenic national park many visits over the years. Even if some spring or autumn mornings can be decidedly chilly, the weather in this magical piece of the Karoo has been hot and dry for most of our time there.
Even if the inclement weather didn’t make for the most comfortable camping conditions there was something
magical, almost mystical, about the misty mountains and the wintry rain-washed plains. The inclement weather didn’t put a damper on our visit at all.
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Mountain Zebra, near Cradock in the Eastern Cape, is one of Sanparks’ smaller, lesser known gems, although it is steadily gaining more and more fans.
It is a little bit off the tourist beaten track but the dramatic scenery alone makes the effort of getting their well worth while – but it is not just the scenery that makes this park so special.
Another good reason to visit it is to see some of it very special residents, the darling little Cape mountain zebras that look as if they belong in a toy shop.
Mountain Zebra National Park was proclaimed in 1927 and was a small conservation area set aside to preserve these then critically endangered zebras.
The mountain zebras have thrived and the population has grown – and so has the park named in their honour.
Today it is a respectable 28 412 hectares in size, big enough to provide an interesting array of game including large, reintroduced mammals like black rhino, brown hyena, buffalo, cheetah, introduced in 2007 and, the park’s latest acquisition, the lions that were brought into the park four years ago.
Game viewing and birding are always good but it is has a unique sense of place that really does make it a special piece of wild Karoo.
It is a place of drama and majesty, of rugged koppies, flat-topped mountains, game-rich grassy plateaux and endless, bossie-studded plains.
It is a harsh mountain place where the weather is extreme and Mother Nature shows little mercy, but it is infinitely lovely, wild and exhilarating.
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The park is also very visitor friendly, with an attractive camping area, a beautiful rest camps, plenty of up-market, comfortable accommodation and excellent visitor facilities.
The attractive office and accommodation complex are set in pretty indigenous gardens and they blend unobtrusively into the rocky, natural surrounds.
The well-appointed camping site huddles beneath craggy mountains where resident black eagles soar. Guests can also stay in splendid isolation at Doornhoek, a restored Victorian farmhouse.
Mountain Zebra offers a wonderful, ever-expanding network of game driving routes. We are always awed by the remoteness and raw beauty of the Rooiplaats Loop that offers endless vistas of undulating grassy plateau, rugged mountains and striking rock formations.
Much of the popular Kranskop Loops follows the green and pleasant Wilgeboom River valley and it has two delightful picnic sites, one of which now boasts a swimming pool.
The Ubejane 4X4 Loop is set out in a scrubby, sandy plains section where visitors can meet some of the park’s smaller residents like the ground squirrels and mongoose. A scenic road links Ubejane Loop to the higher plateaux.
We have many happy memories of this beautiful national park, including watching two cheetahs on a kill right next to the road.
Always, though, we we have been entranced by the extravagance of general game on the plateaux , the fascinating little dwellers of the scrubby plains and of course, the park’s special claim to fame, the Cape mountain zebras that were rescued from the very edge of extinction.
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