SANParks.org Forums

That is some passionate plea, NickyG! If I hadn't already made up my mind for 2012, I certainly would seriously start considering after your post! So vivid, so convincing, so emotional - just great! Thanks for your wonderful 'presentation'!!!

Just spent the long weekend at MZNP - loved it! What a totally different place compared to our Dec visit.
Got lucky and had an incredible sighting of a cheetah- we watched her for nearly 40 min after she past right in front of our car. Didnt see aardvolf or bat eared fox but we will be back soon enough!!
I really enjoyed the drive with Mike, thank you - very informative and funny.

Mike we'll be seeing you towards Easter Weekend...though we probably won't take a night drive due to having our 3-month old baby with us on the trip

Try to coach the cheetahs to make a kill in front of my camera

We have just come back from 4 days at MZNP (my first) and had a wonderful time. Never really been on the SANParks website so decided to register today (this is actually my first post).

Saw a wonderful 'first'. Four Aardwolf’s on our first day. Two of them in the middle of the day.

Went on a on a night drive with Michael and was great fun. We didn’t see much (porcupine, steenbok and the usual) but he was very informative and we learned a lot. Thanks Mike!

Unfortunately we didn’t see any cheetah or rhino, although we did follow the rhino tracks for a while on the night drive. We will definitely be back at MZNP soon and hope to try out the new cheetah tracking walk.

On our drive back to P.E. we suffered from SANParks withdrawal, so we decided to donate our conservation fee to the animals and do a drive through Addo. It didn’t seem to pay off when the rain came down and the animals went into hiding. But just as things seemed lost, a wonderful sighting of a caracal (rooikat) hunting.

All in all we saw Kudu, Gemsbok, Black Wildebeest, Ground Squirrel, Vervet Monkey, Common Duiker, Blue Crane, Red Hartebeest, Steenbok, Grey Rhebok, Mountain, Reedbuck, Blesbok, Cape Buffalo, Cape Mountain Zebra, Rock Dassie, Ostrich, Secretary Bird, Scrub Hare, Blackbacked Jackal, Eland, Springbok, Chacma Baboon, Pale Chanting Goshhawk, Yellow Mongoose, Porcupine and Aardwolf. At Addo; Elephant, Rooikat and a big herd of nearly 100 buffalo deep into the new south section, close to the Vukani Loop.

All in all another wonderful SANParks holiday!


P.S. I have some photos I would like to put up but not sure how? I have loaded them onto Photobucket but don't know what to do next. HELP PLEASE!

ecape so glad you had a great time Welcome to the forums
Re photobucket... Click on the photo you want to post, and to the left there is a panel, at the botttom you will see IMG code Click on the pale grey writing and it will flash copied Then just paste the code into a new post. Hope that makes sense

Not sure which programs you have available, but if you install Irfanview (www.irfanview.com), open the photo with it it is easy and fast.

Ctrl+R, set the long size to 800, and at the bottom of that same screen switch "Apply sharpen after resample" to on.
Save the file under a new name, and upload.
Copy link here, done!

Greetings All

Long since i've posted but i've been honeymooning.

The Park is still in good condition, although the park is starting to dry out. The animals are still fat and the start of the breeding season is starting so all the dominant males are struting around showing there stuff.
The seasons are changing. The mornings and evenings are alot colder, the locals say this is going to be a cold winter.

The drives are good as long as the weather plays along. On a good night we see most game, including aardwolf, porcupine, springhare, caracal, striped polcat( first for me), no aardvark yet, bat-eared( first time in two months) and all the general suspects.

Will put some photos up in days to come.

It's been a while Mike but anyways sounds like you're having a good time in amongst the zebras. Did I read correctly that you are now a married man, if so well done. When are the little mike's on the way .

May you and the better half have a wonderful Easter, and may the creator shine on you and the land that you so well conserve.

Regards

We have just enjoyed the Easter weekend camping at MZNP and cold it was. Friday night dropped to below zero as evidence of the ice covered trailer and frost on the grass. It would have been our 1st night camping to be so cold!!

We were very fortunate to watch a cheetah take down a springbok on the rooiplaat loop on Sat.

It was so unexpected as he/she shot out of the long grass at full speed and crossed the road just in front of us and proceeded to chase the sprinbok back across the road. It was such a special sighting. Unfortuantely no pics of the actual kill but have a few of the cheetah afterwards.

Bartman - can't believe your luck! We also spent a few days there, but left on Saturday morning. Spent a lot of time on Rooiplaat looking for the cheetahs, but no luck.

Had 2 separate sightings of Aardwolf crossing the road! One when we entered the Park on Thursday, and one on Rooiplaat loop on Friday close to the windmill.

Nice bird sightings of secretary birds and goshawks on Saturday too. Otherwise plenty of buffalo, zebra, springbok, blesbuck, black wildebeest and the likes...

Hi All

Here are a few pics of our cheetah sighting and others. The last pic is of what we think was a Brown Hyena. The pic is very unclear but thats the best we could get. Would anybody be able to determine from the shape of its body if it was?

Apart from these we saw quite a few buffalo, blue crane, secretary birds, pale chanting goshawk and the usual others.

Cheetah kill






Aardwolf


Rainbow


Rock Monitor Lizzard


Not sure but think it was a Brown Hyena... its head was on the left of this pic. Can anyone help from the shape of its body?


Regards
Ross

Greetings All

An excitining couple weeks that have pasted.
We have launched a cheetah tracking activity, when all is working in our favour we have huge success.

The game viewing in terms of the nocturnal creatures is improving daily. The grass is shortning so visability is much better.

We have also had our first snow, not the stuff you see on disney world, but snow.
The small white thing is snow.


On one of the warmer days one of these chaps showed himself.


Since i have been in MZNP i have yet to see a Brown Hyena, the closest i have come is spoor. This
is the left front spoor of a brown hyena.


The we found a buffalo that had been killed in a fight with another buffalo. it had a puncture wound
just behind its right shoulder. I thought this would be a perfect opportunity to use the camera trap.
Between hundreds of jackal pics i got one of a brown hyena.


Cheers for now

I am currently in Addo.. Sleeping over in Colesberg tomorrow night.. I am thinking off making a trip through the MZNP.. will it be worth the time? What does the Cheetah Population look like?

we spent 2 wonderful days in the park at the end of June.

we were so lucky to see cheetah the first day she was just lying there looking over her land then we went back the afternoon to see if we could find her again on the way we were able to give my mother a wonderful present the first sighting of an aardwolf in the last 50 odd years that she has been going to our national parks.

then we saw her again and this time she came closer to the car and then came and lay under the tree, what an experience and did my 7 year old ejoy that.

on our way out we saw a characol another thing mom had not seen in the wild and then the most amazing experience we were accompanied to the gate with the most beautiful male cheetah wow all I can say is the MZNP is amazing and will definetly see me again.

Boy this all makes me miss my hometown park - truly a gem of a park and surely underated...its not always about the animals anyway...the smaller finer things make it worth the while too ...