SET in beautiful mopane woodland and surrounded by rocky hills, Kruger’s Tsendze camping and caravan site is a must for all nature lovers who seek simplicity, tranquillity, peace and quiet when they visit wild places.
This special little spot is one of our favourite rest camps and it is situated in a particularly interesting and scenic part of the park, so we were looking forward to spending two days there.
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Tsendze is a satellite of the popular Mopane Rest Camp, a particularly striking camp perched on a hill overlooking the sapphire blue Pioneer Dam. A modern addition to Kruger’s extensive and varied range of rest camps, Mopane has all the elegance and up-market style – without the hefty price-tag – of a luxury private camp.
It really is a gorgeous place, its stone and thatch buildings and exquisite indigenous gardens blending beautifully with their rocky natural surrounds. The camp boasts an attractive restaurant and bar area, cool verandas and covered walkways, from where guests can enjoy excellent game viewing, birding and panoramic views of the dam and surrounding rocky hills.
By contrast, little Tsendze is a rustic, no-frills camp but it offers something completely different.
Filled with birdsong and the rustling sounds of its small four-footed denizens, it provides exceptional wildlife experiences in a wonderfully untouched piece of wilderness.
Tsendze is the place to stay if you need to touch base with Mother Nature.
There is no electricity in the camp although gas burners and fridges are supplied in the attractive outdoor bush kitchen. Each pretty, well-treed and roomy camp site is carefully positioned to give the occupants maximum privacy. A rather lovely feature of this camp is the ablution blocks that are equipped with outdoor showers at each end. There is something very special about an evening star-lit shower.
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Best of all, camp staff members Rogers and Elina are renowned for their efficient, friendly service and their knowledge of the local wildlife. They really make Tsendze the special place it is.
The scenic, hilly area around Tsendze and Mopane camps has always offered us good game viewing and birding and this time was no exception. The area has an excellent and fairly extensive network of gravel game-viewing roads, providing guests with everything from a short evening drive to a full-day expedition.
We arrived at Tsendze in the middle of the afternoon so only did a short drive and a visit to the productive Shipanani riverside hide that evening. The area was teeming with game – big elephant breeding herds and plenty of buffalo, zebra, wildebeest, waterbuck and impala – and the birding was wonderful..
The next day also produced some excellent game viewing but it was the owl sightings that dominated – as is often the case when you visit Tsendze. Early that morning Rogers showed us two adorable African barred owlets in one of the empty sites and an African scops owl, a master of camouflage that was pretending to be part of a lichen-covered trunk of a tree. What an incredible start to the day.
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Game viewing was excellent when spent a productive morning doing a number of the loops roads around Mopani and checking out both hides and some of the waterholes in the vicinity. Most the watering points were attracting big herds of elephants, zebras, waterbuck and wildebeest, all with many babies. A warthog family of Mom, Dad and three little piggies provided great entertainment at Bowkerkop waterhole where they splashed in the water, rolled in the mud and displayed great agility keeping clear of the big-footed pachyderms that joined them at the water’s edge.
We were also intrigued by a herd of bachelor elephants standing on tippy-toes to reach the water in the nearby reservoir. For some reason, Kruger elephants find this water so much better that the more easily available water in the drinking troughs and they go to great lengths to get to it. Elephants can be so much fun to watch.
It was also elephants that provided the lunchtime entertainment when we stopped for a cold drink on a terrace at Mopane.
A large breeding herd had arrived at the edge of the dam and elephants of all ages were having a ball, splashing, swimming, water wrestling, snorkelling, diving and fooling around.
Watching elephants having watery fun is always such a joyous experience.
On the way home we stopped at the Mooiplaas picnic site where we watched a pair of woodland kingfishers feeding their babies in a hole in one of the wooden poles supporting the thatched shelter. Rogers was there, checking on the picnic site, and he suddenly called us over to the car park. He pointed out a large tree in which a sleepy Verreaux’s eagle owl was spending the day. Formerly known as giant eagle owls these magnificent creatures are the largest owls in our region. They have a light grey, almost fluffy looking plumage, dark brown eyes and signature pink eyelids.
For anyone interested in birds, seeing one is always a thrill but this sighting, coming on top of our two lovely owl sightings earlier that day, was really amazing.
We spent the late afternoon and evening in camp, just enjoying the peace and tranquillity and connection with nature in such a special, unspoiled place. Soon after we went to bed, it started to rain, a gentle rain that brought with it the lovely smell of wet earth. The heavy rain we had experienced in Skukuza hadn’t made its way north and this part of the park had been experiencing a bit of a dry spell, so we were grateful for the gentle downpour.
In Africa, rain is a blessing.
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