WHENEVER Bill and I visit Marakele National Park we are astounded, once again, by the sheer beauty of this game reserve, a paradise of a wildlife haven tucked away in the magnificent Waterberg Mountains.
We first visited it in 2002, arriving there on the very day that the much-loved Bontle caravan and camping site was opened. Since then we have frequently been back. Any time our wanderings take us anywhere near the Waterberg, we make a point of spending at least a couple of days at Marakele.
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SANparks has some wonderful places to put up a tent but bird-filled Bontle is really one of the very best camping ground in all 19 of our national parks. Situated within a ring of mountains it overlooks a treed, grassy plain and a small waterhole that is frequently visited by a wide assortment of game.
When we arrived there for our recent three-day stay we found a site on the edge overlooking this plain. Thinking back to 15 years ago when we first stayed at Bontle, I remembered how impressed we’d been with the stylish new ablution blocks and other facilities. These haven’t dated and Bontle still has neat, pretty, modern look about it.
On our most recent visit the park admin buildings were undergoing a revamp so the shop, which was undergoing an expansion, was temporary closed. We needed a few supplies so we took a short drive to nearby Thabazimbi to do a quick shop. It is such an attractive town, boasting all the stores and facilities visitors to the park could possibly need.
That afternoon we stayed in the western side of the park where Bontle is situated.
In the early years Bontle and its surrounds were separate entities from the main, eastern game viewing area but these have now been joined with easy access between them provided via a subway beneath the public Rooiberg road.
The western side, though smaller and less scenic, has a good network of interesting roads and it fair share of attractive little spots, including the Bolionoto bird hide, overlooking a small dam,
and the delightful Ikhutseng Picnic site. We spent a pleasant afternoon exploring this section, enjoying the rather stark but striking gold and grey winter landscape and encountering quite a bit of plains game and some lovely birds.
Back in camp, we were visited by a good selection of birds including three ostriches. We rounded off the day with sundowners with some of our fellow campers on a bench overlooking Bontle’s plains area. The passing parade of four-footed visitors to the nearby water hole was impressive.
It was cloudy and rather cool the next day when we drove through the subway to the eastern section of the park, doing the scenic mountain route to the Lenong viewing point, a lofty 2 040m above sea level.
It is quite a climb along a narrow road that grows steeper and steeper nearer the viewpoint, hugging the mountainside and providing some adrenalin rushes in the form of sheer drop-offs.
All along the route, the mountain scenery was amazing. And the vegetation changed constantly. At times the road took us through grassy, swampy valleys and at other times through lush thickets of trees and shrubs, often dominated by flowering dombeya trees, their frothy white blooms making such a show.
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While the western section of the park was still all wintry, this side was a spring celebration of gold, lime, bronze and copper leaves overlaying the wintry khaki and grey. At one point where the road followed a stream it took us through a magnificent avenue of bright green umdoni trees forming a tunnel over the road.
And all the time we were surrounded by amazingly beautiful mountains, some covered with thick vegetation, others rocky and bare, seemingly made of slabs of red rock that looked like giant Lego bricks.
As we were nearing the viewpoint we saw a small herd of elephants making their way across steep and rocky territory to a river valley. How beautiful they looked, that lemony spring morning.
It was really cold up at the view point but we had a quick lunch there then did a bit of a walk, enjoying some interesting high altitude bird sighting and the incredible Waterberg views. Best of all though was the impressive fly-past of the resident Cape vultures – such beautiful creatures.
We drove back to camp slowly, taking the time to stop frequently to look at game, birds and the interesting vegetation and arriving home just in time for another sundowner on ‘our’ bench.
While the Lenong Drive to the viewing point is the park’s most popular route, it is part of a fairly extensive and interesting network of roads and we spent the next day meandering around these roads less travelled.
Shortly after we turned onto the undulating Mbidi Road loop, we came across two elephants doing a good job of pruning a grove of trees.
They were the first of many lovely elephant sightings, including an encounter with a big breeding herd, that we enjoyed that day. Mostly, though, we were once again blown away by the mountain scenery and the lush, ever-changing vegetation.
After driving back through the subway into the Bontle side of the park we explored some of the little roads in that area then stopped for a late lunch at the lovely picnic site. Back in camp, we lit a fire and put on a potjie.
While it slowly bubbled its way to perfection we again watched the passing show of animals, including some really handsome kudu, making their evening visit to the waterhole.
It was a very satisfactory final evening in one of South Africa’s most beautiful places.
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