Unlike today, when I approached Kenhardt on a dirt track from the southeast, 20 years ago I came at it from Putsonderwater in the northeast. Back then I was on a small old scrambler circumnavigating the Karoo, and while bouncing along the iron-hard dirt track I came across a sign pointing to a farm called Rugseer, a name whose origin was not hard to understand.
This has always been hard country, in every sense of the word. It was also once a place of refuge for runaways, rogues and vagabonds escaping the stultifying restrictions of Cape colonialism and the noose of the law. At first a melting pot of indigenous tribes like the San, Koranna and other Khoi clans, the region was later overrun by runaway slaves, criminals and “Basters”, a coalescence of mixed race people trying to establish their own way of life.
After breakfast at the hotel I take a stroll around town and come across the now dead-looking 600 year old camel-thorn tree around which Kenhardt grew. Standing under its desiccated boughs, I reflect on the arrival here in 1868 of Magistrate MaximilianJackson and the 50 policemen who accompanied him. His appointment was an attempt by the Cape government to restore law and order to the region and it was this tree that first served as a command post, “jail” (criminals were manacled to its stout branches) and barracks campsite.
But Jackson’s tenure lasted only six months. His decision to pardon some of the bandits, like Donker Malgas and Gamka Windwai, backfired on him when they reneged on the terms of the agreement he made with them. This resulted in the appointment of attorney-general Thomas Upington — he was accompanied by the indefatigable Commandant McTaggart with his posse of brave volunteers — who relatively quickly contained the situation by winkling out the outlaws holed up on the many river islands of the lower Gariep.
I hit the long road to Upington by mid-morning. I’m on my way to pick up my long-time friend and bush partner, Lionel “Tau” Williams at the town’s airport, from where we’ll head to our chalet at Kalahari Trails Nature Reserve, 35km from the Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park (KTP). It’s here we’ll test whether Lionel’s built-in black-maned lion magnet still works.
As I discovered when planning this trip, if you want accommodation in the KTP for two to three consecutive nights in one camp, you need to book very long in advance. But the undersupply of accommodation in the park, almost year round, has stimulated a rapid growth of accommodation options on the park’s borders and neighbouring environs, often offering better value and higher levels of comfort and a range of unique attractions as well.
Kalahari Trails is also known as the Meerkat Sanctuary, after being awarded this status by Northern Cape Nature Conservation in 2015. The late Prof Anne Rasa, past owner and renowned ethologist, used her 45 years’ experience of working with sociable mongoose species to create a sanctuary for confiscated meerkats, as well as those orphaned in the wild. While it’s illegal to keep meerkats as pets in South Africa, many folk are still beguiled by their cuteness, particularly when young and before they reach sexual maturity at about six months. Until her death in November 2020, she did her best to educate the public that over and above the illegality of keeping these wild creatures, they don’t make good pets and can become destructive and dangerous; resulting in many of them having to be caged, put down or needing to find homes in the few sanctuaries.
Luckily for meerkats, Rasa’s good work is carried on by her son, Richard, and resident field guide, Mareli van der Berg, the last person to be personally trained by the late professor. Apart from providing shelter to meerkats, Rasa also delighted in sharing the unique wonders of the Kalahari’s ecology and geology with her guests through hands-on field activities, often with an emphasis on the smaller mammals, insects and endemic arachnids such as solifuges and scorpions. These activities are still on offer today.
After a night of sundowners — taking in the gemsbok and springbok at our private waterhole, braaing over a bosveld wood fire of note and zoning out to some late 1960s rock favourites, Lionel and I make for the KTP the next morning.
We collect many animal sightings en route to the Melkvlei picnic site, most notably a black-backed jackal, an enormous mole snake crossing the road, an African wild cat and a brown snake eagle. But it’s not until we cross over to the Mata-Mata track in the west that we get on the trail of a small pride of lions we’re told are resting under a tree near the Rooibrak waterhole. Even though the three females and a young male are 200m away on the far bank of the Auob, we spend half an hour there, enthralled by their goofy antics.
That night Mareli van der Berg takes us on a sundowner drive. Things get off to a good start when she points out an erudite-looking Verreaux’s eagle owl in a nearby camel thorn tree. A while later we stop and climb a typical red sand Kalahari dune for sundowners, watching the light fade as the chorus of barking geckos rises. A two-hour night drive follows on which we garner sightings of many springbok and gemsbok, but the bat-eared foxes, springhares and frighteningly poisonous rough thicktail scorpions (Parabuthus granulatus) impress us most.
On our last day we take another stab at achieving the black-maned lion sighting we’re both still hankering after. About 13km up the track towards Nossob we see a small gathering of cars. After finding a place in the middle of the group, we take in one of the most magnificent black-maned lion specimens we’ve ever seen, just 25m from the car.
Lionel tells me he never felt his feline charms would fail him. I certainly hope they never do.
Travel Notes:
Getting there: The KTP is 1,090km from Johannesburg and 1,076km from Cape Town. Kalahari Trails Nature Reserve is 35km from the park’s gate.
What vehicle do I need: The dirt roads in the park are well-graded and doable in a normal sedan in good weather, but an AWD SUV is recommended in the summer rainfall season, while a proper 4x4 will allow you to access the park’s ecotrails.
What to do here: A visit to the KTP is primarily about seeing the endemic fauna in their unique Kalahari biome, but it’s also a good place to catch up on the life and times of the early San inhabitants and the much later handful of doughty European pioneers who drilled a series of boreholes along the Auob River and eked out a meagre existence here. But apart from these activities in the park, Kalahari Trails Nature Reserve up the road offers: up close and personal viewing of meerkats; guided walks; night hunts for scorpions; daytime dune game drives; sundowner drives and spotlighted night drives, as well as the chance to just relax in one of its many accommodation options, including guest house rooms, standalone private chalets and several immersive in-nature campsites.
What to take with you: While the KTP’s shop at Twee Rivieren has pretty much all you need, it’s quite pricey so it’s best to get all your provisions in Upington.
Where we stayed: The “private chalet” at Kalahari Trails Nature Reserve offers excellent value. Call them on 063 087 7732.
Best time of year to go: April to September.
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