Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park

Best ever visit to this wonderful place of red dunes and its wonderful denizens!

Wildlife - saw nearly everything including a cheetah chase/kill and nearly every day cheetahs for the 1st 8 days. Brown Hyena and Honey Badget accommodating for good images.Birding was great with good in flight photography opportunities. Had a bit of rain - bagged Lanner Falcon and Gabar Goshawk bathing in the road. Cheetahs drank in the road after the kill. Magical photography opportunities. I love the scenery, the landscape, the place - but then I am born in Africa and was raised in this type of dry, hot, beautiful country.
The accommodation in the three main camps are great to adequate - Twee Rivieren, Nossob and MataMata. The best is Twee Rivieren. Some of the Nossob accommodation is hot and cramped but it is still better than camping. There are also the wilderness camps, quite a few and some really remote that have a bit more luxury and is normally small but well kept and maintained. Be warned, it is hot and the gas fridges cannot always cope fresh food may go off quickly.
Summer can get >45ºC in the afternoons and winder is below zero at night. But the place makes up for this with its wonderful wildlife and photographic opportunities. There is an adequate shop at Twee Rivieren selling the basics. Be aware the park is 250 km form Uppington, the largest town in the area and one should come prepared and stocked-up with what you need. Take your own water as the water in the camp tastes funny to horrible, depending on your palate. It is clean and potable, it just does not tastes nice. Roads needs to be taken with patience as it is very corrugated. They pull a tyre grader behind a tractor on a regular basis but rather come in a 2X4 and not a normal sedan vehicle. Long stretches of the road, especially between Melkvlei and Nossob, runs in a deep rut which makes it nearly impossible to see anything adjacent to the road. We never make use of guides because we are citizens and do our own driving. Please note the following about open vehicle driving - it is charming, but it is dusty and can get quite cold. You cannot necessarily stop as long as you want at what you want to, especially if you do photography. The dust is a real problem - do not try to changes lenses!
Al this said, we always have a great time. This is the place to see the Cape Fox, the Bat-eared fox, honey badger and brown hyena. Cheetah and lion is nearly a guarantee and this is one of THE places where you may see a cheetah kill. We have seen two cheetah chases ending in a kill and numerous cheetahs at a kill. Then Kalahari lions are THE king of the lions with their black manes and large feet. There are also resident raptors and other birds that are more readily approachable if you do photography than what you will encounter elsewhere in SA. Overall. as we say : I f once the red sand of the Kalahari got into your socks, your will always want to come back. This is one of the best safari destinations in the world!

This park is the ultimate for me that combines great wildlife, great birding, an excellent feeling of isolation with spectacular Kalahari landscapes!

The amount and variety of game is great - you practically trip over cheetahs as you leave the gates of the rest camps.

Bush vibe - first class. wildlife - first class. Birding - first class. Landscape - wonderful!

It was a remarkable adventure & great opportunity to view amazing animals in their natural habitat.

Though the park does not have the most beautiful of scenery (it's mostly dirt), the wildlife is amazing. I arrived at the park early in the morning for an all-day game drive. Immediately after entering the park, I saw various antelopes and bucks, which made me excited for the rest of the day. It wasn't long before we came across a rare and elusive leopard! What an amazing opportunity! Seeing such a beautiful creature in its natural habitat was a truly remarkable experience. As the day continued, we saw various birds, many giraffes, and even a pack of cheetahs as they enjoyed a recent kill. It would have been nice to be able to spend two days at Kgalagadi in order to see more of the park and view even more wildlife. My guide was very knowledgeable. Our overland truck proved advantageous because it gave us a better view, as we were sitting quite high. There was a gift shop at the park entrance and clean bathroom facilities throughout the park. Overall, I have to say that my experience at Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park is something that I will never forget. If you're a wildlife lover, this park is definitely worth your time!

This is an amazing desert park. This is very unique to SA. The bush vibe is extraordinary. There are some good hides here too, especially at the camp grounds.

The Kalahari desert is a must.

Same as Mabuasehube

Sleep with a lion or hyena outside your tent

We stayed in the Mabuasehube area of the park.
This is one of the few places where you can pitch your tent in the wilderness without having a fence to protect you from the wildlife. It is wild, very wild and you must be careful not to be included in the diet of the lions of which there are usually plenty.

This is typical Kalahari with very hot summers and pleasant cool to hot winters and is situated in the summer rainfall region. There are not any mountains and the scenery is grasslands with camel thorn trees which is heaven for a lover of the Kalahari.

Accommodation is camp sites, some with long drop toilets and cold showers and others with nothing, just the bush.

Mabuasehube can be reached from Nossob a rest camp in the South African part of the Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park via a dune route of about 170km. This road is strictly for 4x4 vehicles with high ground clearance. The other options are from Tsabong in the South which is the route we took. This route is also just for 4x4's. There are also roads from the North and East but we have never tried them. There is no fuel available at Mabuasehube and at Tsabong we had to wait a day for the petrol to be delivered. Taking extra fuel is recommended.

The following items are not available at Mabuasehube:
1. Drinking water - take your own
2. Food - take your own
3. Diesel
4. Petrol
3. Doctors
4. Pharmacies
5. Garages
You must take along whatever you will need.

Be careful to not leave any food or anything else outside at night. Our cooler bag with cold drinks and picnic bag with all our cutlery was stolen by hyenas. Luckily we picked up cutlery stolen from previous visitors otherwise we would have had to eat with our hands. We used plastic bottles cut open for plates.

The wild life is typical Kalahari which means Springbok, Oryx, Lions, leapard and a few other antelopes as well as smaller cats and jackal. You will not find elephant, buffalo or rhino.

Extremely hot and dry and yet plenty of animals. Undisturbed gamewatching