The Story so far

Having “done” De Hoop and the wedding that took us there, we spent time at our home in Mossel Bay until Saturday 26th April 2014, when we took to the road again, this time to Camdeboo National Park which lies close to and almost surrounds the town of Graaff-Reinet in the Eastern Cape province.

Graaff-Reinet

Graaff-Reinet is full of historical buildings, being the fourth oldest town in South Africa – in years past we made a point of booking a night or two in the town  when on our way to the Southern Cape, but more recently we have limited our stops to a lunch or snack and coffee at the popular Polka cafe, which also has an array of bric-a-brac which women love to browse – and it’s a good place for the trainee women (aka the granddaughters) to spend some of their pocket-money.

Getting there – Saturday 26 April 2014

Leaving around midday in light rain, we took a slightly longer route from Mossel Bay, via Robinson Pass, Oudtshoorn and the small town of De Rust, where we stopped for a good coffee at the coffee shop followed by our padkos (a lovely South African word and habit, literally “road food”) of home-made chicken buns – padkos is always best when eaten by the side of the road in the shade of a big tree. Just after De Rust a right turn took us onto the R 341 which links the N 12 and N 9 National roads, then on to Graaff-Reinet with no further stops, as it was getting near to gate-closing time. After a fuel and fast-food stop (sometimes we cheat) we arrived at Camdeboo National Park with 15 minutes to spare and enjoyed our Steers burgers in the communal area before getting ourselves organised in our homely tents – compact living but cosy and equipped with a small fridge, kettle etc. Canvas is a poor insulating material so the night was cold outside and inside the tent, but the beds were comfy and a duvet and fleecy blanket kept us nice and warm both nights – with the exception of the obligatory middle of the night toilet excursion.

Sunday 27 April

Canvas is also not effective at sound insulation so you hear everything going on close by, which is a bit worrying when the creepy-crawlies get moving at night but only a pleasure when the morning chorus wakes you up – I lay in bed in the dawn hour “ticking” a few in my mind, including Cape Robin-Chat with its happy tune, Brown-hooded Kingfisher sounding excited, Pied Barbet calling nasally, Bar-throated Apalis “chipping” loudly as it moved through the bush and Hadeda Ibis doing its “bird with a fear of heights” imitation.

After this early chorus we drifted back to sleep, thinking it was still dark outside – that’s another thing about canvas,  it doesn’t let light in and the window flaps were closed, so we ended up rising at the “gentleman’s hour” of 8.30am. Time to put some serious effort into birding and atlasing the camp and so I took an extended walk around the small camp and the adjoining caravan camp. The Lakeview Camp comprises just 4 tented units with a communal kitchen and ablutions – a setup we found much to our liking as it felt as if we had the whole place to ourselves (which we did save for one tent occupied by others). Importantly, the facilities are kept clean and neat at all times.

The walk produced a number of species with Cape Robin-Chat, Karoo Scrub-Robin and Familiar Chat most prominent, drawn by the quite dense bush surrounding the camp.

The call of a Pririt Batis resounded through the camp and I was able to track it down for a snatched photo.

Yellow-fronted Canary (at the edge of its range by the looks of it), Chestnut-vented Titbabbler and Southern Double-collared Sunbird (phew those are long names) were all nice additions to the growing list. Not to be outdone by the birds, Striped Mice and Karoo Bushrats inhabit the undergrowth, the latter occupying large rambling nests built of hundreds of dry sticks – as you walk around they pop up to have a look and then scurry off or dart back into their nests.

After tea it was time to explore the Park by car and we soon came across Anteating Chat, Fiscal Flycatcher and Red-billed Firefinch on the way to the bird hide which is not far from the camp.

The neat hide sits at a distance from the water’s edge, which probably moves closer when the Nqweba dam is fuller. It still provided the chance to ID the few visible water birds such as Yellow-billed Duck, Cape Shoveler, Darter and SA Shelduck while the surrounding grass / bush had Black-throated Canary, Amethyst Sunbird and Bronze Mannikin to keep things interesting.

Back at the camp, Greater Flamingo were just visible through a gap in the tall reeds that block most of the view of the dam (making the name of the camp “Lakeview” a tad misleading).

 

I was not entirely satisfied with my bird list up to then and took a late afternoon drive to the far side of the dam, ticking Ostrich and Hamerkop along the way as I crossed a stream, with Kudu browsing nearby.

At the viewpoint at the last stop on the road I had a good view across the water, which held Black Stork and Black-winged Stilt in the shallows and  Kittlitz’s Plover and the ubiquitous Three-banded Plover at the muddy edge.

Heading back to the camp in the dusk, I came across a pair of Black-backed Jackals, the one nuzzling the other as I took some photos of this beautiful species. A few minutes later the sky turned a spectacular orange-red colour as the sun set.

With just 2 nights booked, we made the most of the facilities on our second evening, braai-ing in the boma and eating out under the stars, wrapped up against the cold early winter air. That night it was colder in the tent and we slept with our woollen hats pulled down over our ears.

Monday 28 April

Our short stay was over and we set about packing the vehicles while still enjoying the surroundings, as a Fish Eagle called in the distance, a pair of Cardinal Woodpeckers made their way through the camp followed by a flock of Common Waxbills. A trilling call jogged my memory but it took me a while to realise it was a Namaqua Warbler, who remained well hidden in the denser bush.

On the way out of Camdeboo, we visited the Andries Pretorius monument near the entrance –

On the road at last, we stopped briefly to check out a Rock Kestrel before heading into town for a coffee stop at Polka cafe, then on to the other, very different, part of Camdeboo which harbours the Valley of Desolation, with its steep access roads through beautiful landscape, culminating in viewing spots that provide quite breathtaking views. The first of these looks down over the town of Graaff-Reinet way below and the second provides sweeping views across the flat plains of the surrounding Karoo, framed by the craggy peaks of the nearby mountains.

This was also a good spot to enjoy our padkos burgers before heading back down the mountain road and on to our next destination near Cradock – Mountain Zebra National Park – which turned out to be a lot more impressive than we had expected. More of that in Part 3 of this series.