Why The Kgalagadi Is King

The Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park is remote but accessible; it’s wild, but you can stay in comfort in one of the rest camps. It also has the X-factor: You can lock eyes with a lion on a dune at sunrise, or hear the clang of horns as gemsbok bulls battle for dominance. We celebrate this wonderful park with amazing photos and stories from our readers.

- Toast Coetzer

ELLY WRITES: Jan and I live in a small village in the Netherlands, just south of Rotterdam. We first visited the Kgalagadi in January 2017. Since my recent retirement, we are very fortunate to be able to stay in the park for longer periods – our last trip was 24 days long.

What we love about the Kgalagadi is the absence of human presence. Except for the gravel roads, rest camps and waterholes, you don’t see buildings, advertising billboards or manmade structures in the landscape. You just see nature as it has been for centuries, although people who have known the area for 40+ years might debate this…

Still, driving around in the park, I can imagine the ancient place the Kgalagadi has always been. It makes me feel privileged, to experience this sense of undisturbed space and time – unique in our world today.

We love the anticipation when you leave camp early in the morning. What will you see? You have no idea! Maybe only a few turtledoves at the waterhole, a pronking springbok or a magnificent gemsbok on the horizon... or a spectacular cheetah chase, or a lion on a kill!

If you choose to wait at the waterhole with the turtle-doves, there is always a chance that a lanner falcon will appear, with an opportunistic pale chanting goshawk or a tawny eagle in the vicinity, waiting to steal the kill from the falcon...

But then, you might miss a thirsty lion coming to the next waterhole for a long drink after its early morning meal! Or secretarybirds doing a spectacular mating dance in the riverbed.