Welgevonden Game Reserve is just one of many private game reserves located in South Africa. About 2.5 hours north of Johannesburg, Welgevonden is easy driving from Gaborone. Although it certainly doesn't get the same attention as other parks (think Kruger NP, Addo Elephant NP), one long weekend spent at Welgevonden in April certainly provided a quiet, unique getaway. And the game sightings were damned good! Although realtively close to Gaborone, and a stone-throw from the Botswana border, the landscape could not be more different. Set in the Waterberg Biosphere, the Kalahari desert disappears and is replaced with the dry forest and bushveld typically found throughout Limpopo. With the late seasonal rains through to March, the creeks were flowing and foliage glowing a bright youthful green. Any green provides a welcome relief from desert life in Botswana.
This weekend was a special treat for my dear friend Cez joined me on the trip. Pretoria-born and Queensland-based, a weekend (in style) in the bush was an ideal opportunity to hit the road and appreciate the natural beauty of South Africa. We were staying at Clifftop Lodge, a property built on (unsurprisingly) a clifftop above the Sterkstroom River that flows through the middle of the reserve. There were only about 8 guests during our stay, and as most decided to ditch the game drives for morning sleep-ins, we had the Landcruiser to ourselves almost every time!
Welgevonden has a good range of game, with almost of the typical big mammals. On a sad note though, there was only one lion in the reserve for an outbreak of canine distemper disease (yes, I do mean canine, not feline) had eradicated all remaining lions, along with a couple of hyena (lions have since been reintroduced).
A small lion population is good news for the cheetah population though, and the highlight was a morning find where mother and two cubs were engorging themselves on a fresh impala kill, barely 3 metres from the 4x4 track. With a healthy rh1no population and plentiful other mammals (including the waterbuck, one of my favourites), Welgevonden is certainly on my return-to list.
