Back in July, we ventured north to spend a long weekend in Mapungubwe National Park. We had been wanting to visit this park for some time and we were really excited to find availability over my birthday weekend.

View of South Africa, Botswana and Zimbabwe

Mapungubwe sits right on the border between South Africa, Botswana and Zimbabwe. For the moment only the South African part can be visited but apparently there is talk of making it a transfrontier park. While the park is not known for the quantity of wildlife sightings that one usually gets in some other parks, it is incredibly scenic and a great place to relax for a few nights.

As far as the eye can see

The park is divided into an eastern and western section, with private land separating the two. If you have a 4×4 you can drive the road dividing the two sections, but if you do not, it is about a 30 minute drive around the outside of the park to get from one to the other. I don’t think I have mentioned it on the blog, but we traded our Jeep (Just Empty Every Pocket) last November for a smaller, but much more reliable Honda Jazz. While the Jazz has been fine while we have been on safari in Kruger, we found that we were really limited as far as the roads we could drive in Mapungubwe. If you are going to visit, I would really recommend a 4×4 to fully enjoy this park.

There are several accommodation options in the park, including a campsite. We chose to stay at the Leokwe Rest Camp for 2 nights, located in the eastern section of the park. I just loved this camp and our 1 bedroom cottage was just fantastic. This place was absolutely huge. There was a bedroom with 2 single beds, a large kitchen/living room space and a beautiful terrace (we even saw an eland just off the terrace one afternoon) with a braai and and a view to die for. Oh, and did I mention the outdoor shower ?!?

Leokwe Rest Camp

Our cottage

Spacious living area

View from the terrace

Terrace with braai

Eland right off our terrace one afternoon

Outdoor shower with a view, I just loved this

Pool. Did I mention the views ?

Upon realizing our road options would be pretty limited, we signed up for a 3 hour evening safari drive on our first day. This allowed us to visit some of the parts of the park we wouldn’t get to see and turned out to be a lot of fun. My favorite sighting of the drive was a porcupine, a first for me. Unfortunately it was a bit too dark to get any photos but he was so cute just waddling down the road. Our guide also spotted a leopard way up on a cliff (too far and too dark for good photos); these guys always amaze me with their spotting skills.

Klipspringer. We saw many of them over the weekend; they love the rocky terrain here.

There are so many amazing baobabs in the park.

Watching the sunset and listening to lions in the not so far distance.

The following morning we took a drive over to the western section of the park. The highlight here was the Maloutswa Hide. We spent over an hour here with the hide all to ourselves watching the spectacular birdlife enjoying the warm winter day.

View from Maloutswa Hide

African Sacred Ibis

Pied Kingfisher searching for lunch

Hamerkop coming in for a landing

Left to right: White Faced Ducks, Hamerkop, African Spoonbill, Grey Heron

African Spoonbill strikes a pose

This log is about to get a whole lot more crowded

Grey Heron and his lunch

Reed Cormorant

White Faced Ducks

White-fronted Bee Eater

 Back on the eastern side of the park, there are two places that you absolutely need to visit. The first is the treetop canopy walk. Wooden planks wind their way through the trees affording some lovely views of the river below.

Treetop Canopy Walk

Views from the canopy walk

Baboon pondering what kind of mischief he can get up to

Bushbuck checking us out

The other highlight of the eastern section is the Confluence Viewpoint. This is the place to be for the best views and amazing sunsets. There are viewpoints on both sides of the picnic area so be sure to get to both.

Viewing Deck

Lots of curious dassies around the viewpoints

Giraffes

Confluence Picnic Site

Looking out from one of the viewing decks. This is where South Africa, Botswana and Zimbabwe meet.

Amazing Sunset

We really enjoyed our stay in Mapungubwe and I really recommend a visit if you are looking for a less crowded park to get away from it all and you aren’t concerned with only big 5 sightings. I’ll leave you with a few more photos of our wildlife sightings. Until we meet again Mapungubwe.

Elephants. We watched a breeding herd playing for quite some time.

Wildebeest

Elephant and a Baobab

Looks like she may be expecting

Part of a breeding herd

Zebra Portrait