Planning ahead as always (not), we drove into Kaoxa Bush Camp hoping to find Virginia there to welcome us. She was nowhere to be found and her phone was on voicemail. So we booked into the SA Parks camp inside Mapungubwe, the first time I have stayed inside the park. Jess was pleased – the chalet had aircon! And it was hot. Even the eles sought shade:
I drove around Mapungubwe east, the more famous half of the park, and walked the boardwalk to overlook the Limpopo and into Botswana and Zimbabwe. Jess mainly stayed in the chalet. The day we left I drove the long way round to the gate, so she did see some of this interesting Eastern section of the park.
Then we moved on to Kaoxa. We drove down to Virginia’s home and found her. She asked us to bring cash, so we drove the 70km to Musina and drew cash as we needed to do some food shopping anyway. The tar road is in very good nick except for two patches near Mapungubwe with bad potholes. So 110km/h is easy, but when you see potholes, slow down drastically! Each patch is just a couple hundred metres, but bad.
Good ceiling fans and great showers, a cool shady pool and lots of shade under thatch. As we arrived there was a squirrel in the chalet. It jumped onto Jess and scratched her arm, then fled. We ate and swam and birded and stared at the view. For wifi we drove to Duncan’s homestead and sat on the back veranda. Good birding there, too. A very special place is Kaoxa Bush Camp. Do support it so it can stay wild forever! Best to book online.
– African Hawk Eagle – Gymnogene –
~~oo0oo~~
Birds seen in the area: Cinnamon-breasted Bunting Black Eagle (Verreaux’s) Familiar Chat Jamesons Firefinch Mocking Cliff Chat Kori Bustard Grey-headed Sparrow Lanner Falcon Woodland Kingfisher Dusky Flycatcher White-browed Sparrow-Weaver Rufous-naped Lark Arrow-marked Babbler Violet-backed & Redwing Starlings Wood Sandpiper Acacia Pied Barbet Black-collared Barbet
I started off going west to find cellphone signal. In the Pafuri area Vodacom (wrongly) told me, ‘You have left your area, you are now on Movitel Mocambique; calls will cost you more;’ So I had to drive 40km west of Pafuri gate to be “in SA” from a Vodacom point of view. Local people all shook their heads dolefully when I asked where I could catch Vodacom signal around Pafuri. ‘You have to be MTN here,’ they all said.
The day I left Pafuri River Camp I just kept going west. When I hit the N1 highway I realised I was halfway to the Botswana border, so I decided to keep heading towards the setting sun. I’d find room at my friend Dave Hill’s friend Duncan MacWhirter’s Kaoxa Camp. National Parks are mostly full because of school holidays. When I got past Musina, guess what? Vodacom (wrongly) told me, ‘You have left your area, you are now on Orange Botswana; calls will cost you more;’ Get your act together, Vodacom! Refund me, dammit!
Kaoxa Camp is everything I remember from a stay here in 2013 – and better. There are now safari tents, a swimming pool, and the campsite (no longer a Drifters) looks even better. I had the whole place to myself, and wonderful hosts Virginia and David to look after me!
The farm is now open to the western section of Mapungubwe National Park – the fences between them have been dropped. It was amazing to drive west on the property and just keep going as the only vehicle around, all the way to the Limpopo river and the National Park camps there. I felt like the owner of the full 28 000ha.
To get to Mapungubwe east you have to drive out of Kaoxa gate on the main road and then into Mapungubwe main gate. It’s an amazing park – the more famous of the ‘two halves,’ east and west.
One morning I took a flask of coffee and drove to Duncan’s Lookout on Kaoxa. I sat on the comfy bench and scanned the mopane woodland below, looking north towards the Limpopo. Nothing to see, but plenty of birds to keep me there. A loud squeal told me there was an elephant nearby and I walked to the edge of the hill to see if I could see him. Nothing. Then he squealed again and I saw he was a distance from the hill, not as near as he’d sounded. Then I saw a second ele – they’d been right in front of me and I hadn’t seen them! Then I saw a whole herd of big and small – about twenty five of them. And then – how blind can you be!? A herd of seventy or more! There was a dry stream bed which hid them whenever they went into it, so that’s my excuse. It was a Hundred Helephunt Hideout!
Here’s the Lekker Lookout:
– nothing to see, right? –– look closer –
One night a Danish couple with two kids arrived after dark and asked where the campsite was. They had arrived at the JHB airport, picked up a 4X4 with two rooftop tents and headed for Africa. Learning about the vehicle and buying supplies had taken longer than they’d planned, hence the late arrival.
They asked where the campsite was – about 2km away in the dark. I said, ‘If I Were You, I would raise your rooftop tents right here where you are, use ‘my’ kitchen and dining room with lights and wifi; cook with ‘my’ pots and use ‘my’ plates which will get washed in the morning. That way you’ll feed the kids quicker and get to bed way earlier for your long drive tomorrow.’ They were Danish and law-abiding, so they said, But we booked for the campsite. I said, ‘Sure, but I’m the laird of the manor tonight, Virginia is not here, so you could almost call me Duncan; So that’s what I would do if I were you.’
They relaxed and did the naughty – not really – African thing. Or un-Danish thing. Next morning they spent an hour or so exploring round the lovely site with its amazing views and left in fine fettle. I think way more relaxed than they would have been had they roughed it that night.
Beware of things lurking when out for a carefree stroll in the veld.
Outside Mapungubwe in October 2013 I spotted a male lion running free on the tar road. As I got closer he ducked under a little bush. Amazing how I would never have spotted him had I not seen him dive under it!
The can in the foreground of this picture is on the edge of the tar road, the bush is at the bottom of a steep little bank – about 3m down.
He’s there, believe me! A full-grown lion is under that little bush. A short while later he bolted and ran along the fence in the opposite direction to where I was going on my way to Limpopo-Lipadi in Botswana. I was too slow with my phone camera. (this story repeated – more or less – here).
The stay at Kaoxa was great. When I told hostess Virgeenia I’d been sent there by my friend, young David Hill, she exclaimed:
Hau, that one he makes us laugh!
I had the camp to myself and prepared an elaborate bachelor’s supper, mainly liquid: A Black Label beer, then a couple G&T’s with ice & lemon, biltong, crisps and tomato sarmies. Made with old-style slice-it-yourself white bread. Whattafeast.
Next morning the ants had tried to hijack a stick of biltong, but had only moved it about 40cm. A few thousand of them put a thin stick on their backs for a getaway, but they were too slow.
The chalet was clean, comfortable and had a lovely porch overlooking the valley. The communal kitchen was well-equipped and the fridge was cold with lots of ice. I enjoyed a magic sunset and sunrise. I watched distant eles in the valley for supper, one under a baobab; the Mocking Chats woke me on the thatch roof, squirrels scurried along the branches and I had a klipspringer in full sunlight for breakfast:
Later I checked out the Drifters mobile safaris camp on Kaoxa land. What a special site, ensconced in the rocky hillside among huge boulders!
Interesting sights were an ele looking tiny next to a baobab and a giraffe looking short next to a massive free-standing boulder, the landscape miniaturising these large beasts.
—–Original Message—– From: pete swanepoel: Did I tell you I saw a beautiful male lion running along the fence on the tar road outside Kaoxa? Obviously escaped from the De Beers reserve, he was as worried as hell! When I drove up next to him he dived under a bush and wouldn’t move, even when I put my foot out and rustled the grass. See the picture I took. I’ll be even more wide awake walking in the bush now when I see how little cover a big male lion needs! Cheers —— On 2013/11/07 David Hill wrote: Did you stay at Kaoxa? How was it? Let me know so I can let Duncan have some feedback. We were up there for his 60th, beginning August – twenty five old conneko’s – beautiful.
