Source: Southern Africa’s top 21 parks taken from the April 2010 Issue of Getaway Magazine.
Southern Africa has some of the finest wildlife parks in the world. We’ve rounded up the top 21 parks – where to find them and what to know about them.
Kruger National Park (Map 42) is simply enormous. It comprises nearly two-million hectares of South African bush and is also part of the Greater Limpopo transfrontier Park. The country’s most popular bush destination, Kruger offers the ultimate wildlife experience, with an unrivalled diversity of large mammals.
Table Mountain National Park (Map 46). The 1000-square-kilometer marine reserve of Table Mountain National Park stretches in a 10-kilometre band from Mouille Point lighthouse, past world-class beaches, around the Peninsula and Cape Point to Surfer’s Corner in Muizenberg.
De Hoop Nature Reserve (Map 50) on the southern Cape coast in the Western Cape, is unrivalled for rare and endangered flora and fauna and, in whale season (June to November with peak in August and September) for viewing the Southern Right Whale.
Garden Route National Park (Map 52). The formerly separate national parks of Wilderness andTsitsikamma, the Knysna Lakes area and other land under Sanparks management, were gathered together into what is now one of South Africa’s most interesting and diverse parks.
Addo Elephant Park (Map 56). Conveniently close to Port Elizabeth, Addo Elephant National Park offers the most affordable wildlife viewing in the Eastern Cape and is the only park in the world that’s home to the Big Seven.
Hluhluwe-Imfolozi Game Reserve (Map 58). As Africa’s oldest game reserve, Hluhluwe-Imfolozi was the springboard for the survival of the white rhino, and it’s still one of the best places to see them. Set in the heart of Zululand, the reserve offers 96 000 hectares of wilderness, home to a huge diversity of wildlife.
iSimangaliso Wetland Park, (Map 62) South Africa’s third largest park, lies in Northern KwaZulu-Natal and encompasses eight interlinking ecosystems and a huge range of habitat.
West Coast National Park (Map 66) is a haven for birdwatching enthusiasts and naturalists. Langebaan Lagoon, at the heart of the park, supports 60 000 birds of at least 200 species.
Ai-Ais/Richtersveld transfrontier Park (Map 68). In the far northwestern corner of the Northern Cape, the Ai-Ais/Richtersveld Transfrontier National Park is a beautiful desert wilderness that harbours extraordinary biodiversity.
Madikwe Game Reserve (Map 72). Located on the western border of North West Province, Madikwe Game Reserve offers 75 000 hectares of malaria-free wilderness.
Kgalagadi transfrontier National Park (Map 76). The vast, silent Kgalagadi Transfrontier National Park is one of the largest conservation areas of this scale in the world. The 3,6-million hectares of red dunes and scrubby flora straddle the border marked by the dry Nossob River bed, between Botswana and South Africa.
Central Kalahari Game Reserve (Map 82) is Botswana’s largest game reserve at 52 800 square kilometres. It’s the wild, unforgiving heart of Southern Africa and just about as far off the beaten track as you can get in the region.
Moremi Game Reserve (Map 86). A great mosaic of floodplains and a staggering variety of ecosystems make Moremi Game Reserve’s wildlife among the richest in Africa.
Chobe National Park (Map 88) is legendary among those seeking the ultimate African wildlife experience. The park has one of the greatest concentrations of game in Africa, and has recently been incorporated into a giant transfrontier conservation area known as Kaza.
Namib-Naukluft National Park (Map 92) in Namibia is a formidable vastness which sustains many strange plants and animals adapted to life on the edge.
Etosha National Park (Map 96) is host to spectacular wildlife in its massive 6 000-square-kilomtre mineral pan.
Golden Gate Highlands National Park (Map 100) named after its golden sandstone cliffs, offers beautiful scenery in the Eastern Free State
Mountain Zebra National Park (Map 104) was established in 1937 to save a species from extinction – today there are more than 1 000 mountain zebras in the park, as well as cheetahs, 216 bird species and some of the world’s biggest earthworms.
Karoo National Park (Map 108) outside Beaufort West in the Western Cape spans some 73000 hectares of the Great Karoo. It’s a landscape of alluring table-top plateaus and thirsty flats, of spiny veld and splintered rock.
Hwange National Park (Map 110) in Zimbabwe has the highest diversity of mammals for any national park in the world, with around 108 species and over 400 types of birds, including 50 raptors, and an estimated 30 000 elephants.
Mana Pools and Lower Zambezi (Map 114). Zimbabwe’s Mana Pools National Park is 2 196 square kilometres, but is part of an unfenced wildlife estate that runs from Kariba in the west to the Mozambique border in the east.
Park locator
Read a full article on each of these parks:
Cape Town and West Coast to Namibia
Ai-Ais Richtersveld Transfrontier National Park
Garden Route
Karoo
Free State
KwaZulu Natal
Mpumalanga
North West Province
Botswana
Kgalagadi transfrontier National Park
Zimbabwe
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