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Kgalagadi — a place of beasts and beauty to clear the mind and soften the heart

Kgalagadi — a place of beasts and beauty to clear the mind and soften the heart
Twee Rivieren rest camp, with stormclouds looming. (Photo: Chris Marais)
Julienne Du Toit
By Julienne Du Toit
14 May 2025
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An entry in the visitors book at the Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park gate reads: ‘The Kalahari will reveal itself only to those who seek with a true heart.’ Well, let’s have a look.

Unless you happen to live in Vanzylsrus, Askham or Upington, getting to the Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park is a big deal.

From most of the major cities, it’s an eight-hour drive or more.

So my husband Chris and I reckon, well, this time we’re definitely going to photograph those stunning black-maned lions. Maybe under a camelthorn. Maybe with cubs. Maybe in a confrontation with hyenas. We’ll get cheetahs hunting. We’ll get leopards in trees. 

And then we arrive at Twee Rivieren, the entrance to this extraordinary park, and the excitement builds. The camps are almost invariably filled to capacity. There are vehicles from all over the country. 

As everyone does, we strike up a conversation with a neighbour over a braai and find they are dryland pilgrims from some improbably distant part of the country, like Uitenhage or Bela Bela or Alberton. They return every year. In fact, after a while, it seems everyone we meet has been here before. The Kgalagadi must have a staggering return visitor rate.

On the first night, we remember why: there is magic in the bright canopy of stars at night, in the rising call of a pearl-spotted owl and the falling lament of a jackal.

Kgalagadi Kalahari A jackal yawns under a camelthorn tree, ready for the night patrol. (Photo: Chris Marais)



The gemsbok or oryx, lord of the desertlands. (Photo: Chris Marais)


Beasts in action


Early in the morning, we head off for a long game drive, with plans to picnic at Mata Mata. Gemsbok pose in the silky bushman’s grass along the dry riverbed. They always look so well groomed and imperious, untouchable as the presidential guard.  

A movement in the grass, and there is a black-backed jackal. It comes and flops down in the soft dust of the red road and looks at us, ever so pleased with itself and so beautiful we wonder how anyone could say anything bad about a jackal. 

Pale chanting goshawks cast fierce orange-eyed glares about their kingdom from the top of camelthorns.

Namaqua doves, so elegant in black, beige and white, take off and land in front of us. They look like demure 1920s flappers. At the Houmoed waterhole, alive with red dragonflies and orange butterflies, we see dozens of them. It’s like a novice nun convention.

Namaqua doves, demure as nuns, are the smallest doves in southern Africa. (Photo: Chris Marais)



A ground squirrel nibbles on a seed. They live in underground colonies and become accustomed to humans near rest camps. (Photo: Chris Marais)



A pale chanting goshawk, with a mouse for dinner. (Photo: Chris Marais)



An immature martial eagle dips its toes in a mud puddle. (Photo: Chris Marais)


Kalahari Jousting Club


We notice how the lone males of two species will stand companionably together, sometimes a springbok and a gemsbok male. Further on a lone wildebeest with a gemsbok. Seems they like being with gemsbok. Nothing and no one messes with those scimitar horns. 

A secretarybird strides away through the long grass. Among the dark camelthorns are others with finer, paler vegetation – the vaal (pale) camelthorns. Giraffes dote on both kinds.

There are wildebeest among the camelthorns, more relaxed than in any other park. A huge herd, some lying down for a midday drowse. Ravens near the dry riverbed look like dark chickens in the grass. 

Yellow flowers, white butterflies, glades of camelthorns. Springbok lying in the shade. Bee-eaters dancing around a tree.

The animals are pretty chilled about visitors. In fact, they seem to like being admired. Sometimes the animals present themselves as if for adoration (jackals do love the opportunity to show off). The ground squirrels at the rest camps forage and only metres away. Their youngsters jink their fluffy tails and fool about fearlessly. The yellow mongoose trots right by the braai stand. 

It’s quite remarkable to see the difference between a new park’s animals and these, generations of which have grown up alongside humans who have meant them no harm.

Through binoculars we see stories unfolding. Bulls battling for dominance and territory. A meerkat staring through blades of grass at a nearby bug, ignoring us. A family of cheetahs with stomachs like footballs after a kill.

The relief of rain. (Photo: Chris Marais)



A sociable weaver nest can host up to 300 birds or more, and each one of these dumpy blue-billed birds brings back several more grass stems every day. Eventually a nest can weigh several tonnes, sometimes leading to collapse. (Photo: Chris Marais)



Every now and then a sociable weaver nest falls over. This provides a potential feast for predators like this Cape cobra, hunting for eggs or helpless chicks. (Photo: Chris Marais)


A snake in the nest


At a fallen sociable weaver nest, we stay to watch these formidably busy little birds with their mindless twittering and blue beaks like Pixar cartoon birds. Suddenly a yellow Cape cobra glides into view, looking lean and hungry. It whips through the fallen nest, clearly incensed that he finds nothing. The Pixar birds witter in alarm and shift about on twigs above him. 

We are lucky enough to be there when there is rain. There is nothing more dramatic than a thunderstorm in a desert. The fragrance rising from the earth as the first raindrops fall is the smell of heaven.

At night, the lightning strobe-lights the trees and raindrops, freeze-framing bats in flight. 

In the morning, every beast in the land is enjoying the water. At every puddle there are butterflies and birds. Tortoises come and drink long. Raptors paddle about like children. Springbok come and drink from rain-filled tyre furrows along the road. 

A line from the book The Kalahari and its Plants by Pieter van der Walt and Elias le Riche resonates: In the preface, J du P Bothma writes: 

“The Kalahari is a thankful place, which reacts generously to the slightest concession of Nature.”

Namaqua doves, demure as nuns, are the smallest doves in southern Africa. (Photo: Chris Marais)



Wildebeest joust companionably among the flowers. (Photo: Chris Marais)



A secretarybird strides across the plains, looking out for tasty snakes and lizards. (Photo: Chris Marais)


A state of bemused grace


We encounter people at picnic spots. When we ask if they’ve seen anything interesting, some will launch into an account of exactly where they’ve seen a family of cheetahs near a herd of springbok. Others will say something like: “Not much, but that’s not what we came for. It’s more for the beauty…”

Namaqua sandgrouse come down to drink at waterholes with soft, fluttering cries: “Kelkiewyn, kelkiewyn.” There are finches and sparrows in trees, waiting rooms for drinking at the waterholes.

In the early morning we see and hear a spotted eagle owl hooting in the pre-dawn light, then catch a glimpse of a bat-eared fox and his fluffy wife. We see a pair of pygmy falcons, then a pale chanting goshawk eating a mouse. 

As we take pictures, we slip into a state of bemused grace. As the shutter clicks, there is the sweet feeling of striking a true note.

A korhaan, heart attack bird, screeches suddenly and flaps across the veld which is full of tiny tortoises.

Twee Rivieren rest camp, with stormclouds looming. (Photo: Chris Marais)



After a few days we accept that seeing the black-maned lion or skulky hyenas is not the main attraction. Maybe next time the Universe will usher a dashing lion our way.  

It doesn’t really matter, because what’s so good are the little stories that play out in front of everyone. It’s that the animals hardly seem to notice us at all.

It feels as if the Kalahari days and nights clear the mind and soften the heart.

So we depart homewards, feeling healed of some nagging ailment we hadn’t even realised was there. And as soon as we get home, we contact SA National Parks and make a reservation for next year. DM

You can make enquiries or book at Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park via www.sanparks.org, email [email protected] or call 012 428 9111.



 

For an insider’s view on life in the South African Heartland, get the Karoo Quartet set of books (Karoo Roads I-IV with black and white photographs) for only R960, including taxes and courier costs in South Africa. For more details, contact Julie at [email protected]

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