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Cape Trip - February/March 2010

Mountain Zebra National Park

We set off on Tuesday 16 February 2010 for the Mountain Zebra National Park. Along the way we encountered very wet conditions.

We turned off at the Gariep Dam and used the GPS to find the shortest route. This led us along some lovely small sand roads.

At one of the gates we found this unusual flower. On the right is a bud. Unfortunately there was barbed wire in the way.

In places the road was getting extremely wet.

As we reached Mountain Zebra National park there was a lovely rainbow. Because it looked as if it might rain, and because I liked the idea of staying in a chalet - we did that.

The first animals we saw were a herd of Springbok.

Followed by Red Hartebeest.

The landscape was much greener than we expected as we had been told that there had been a drought in the area

The swimming pool looked inviting but it was cold so I decided just to take a picture of it.

Some of the thorn trees had extremely large thorns and Sylvia obliged by providing a hand for size reference purposes.

Low cloud early in the morning.

Sylvia standing next to a large Earth Worm that I removed from the road so that the vehicle following us did not run over it. The animal feels like a wriggling wet slug when you pick it up. We had never seen these before and later we saw a lot more.

Single Red Hartebeest.

A herd of Buffalo which we saw on the first day but we did not see them again despite searching for them.

The famous Mountain Zebra.

One of the picnic spots where we parked under this giant blue gum tree.

A Kudu cow peeping out at us.

There had been so much rain that the parks department had closed all the 4x4 routes. On the last day - late in the morning - they opened the chains and we were through. This was a new route up the mountain and I was surprised that the route was quite technical. Usually 4x4 routes in the parks are just other roads. The pictures below were taken on this route. (The lower route along the river was not opened while we were there.)

During our stay we saw lots of animals and I have just attached a few random pictures. It is well worth visiting this park for a few days. The park officials are extremely helpful and courteous.