We checked another South African National Park (SANPark) off of our list when we spent several winter days in Mountain Zebra National Park. Established in 1937 and consisting of 28,000 hectares previously dedicated to farming, the park was initially established to protect the decreasing mountain zebra population in the Eastern Cape Province. Now more than 1,000 of the beautiful black and white creatures roam the area. 

Instead of staying in the main rest camp, we booked a remote, rustic cottage. Getting to the fenced accommodation included driving up and over several very large rocks. Fortunately, after several attempts in our 4×2 rental vehicle, we ascended the rocks.

Most of the cottage fence stands about 2 meters tall, except in the area right beside the entrance to the unattached bathroom where the fence is about 30 centimeters shorter. This fact was not forgotten when taking the 20 second walk to the loo in the middle of the night. 

It was baby season for mountain zebras during our visit!

We saw just one lion, a male laying in the grass along the upper plateau road. His eyes were a bit glazed and he didn’t move during the time we watched him, not even a twitch or flick of his tail. We couldn’t tell if he was sleeping quite soundly or in very poor health. He was not there the next day, so we concluded that he was having a serious morning nap when we took his picture.

Visitors to MZNP can participate in a cheetah tracking adventure. This involves riding in a game truck to find the collared cheetahs and then walking a short distance behind the big cats in the plateaus or valleys. We did not take advantage of this opportunity, but we did see three cheetahs followed by walkers and a guide one afternoon. Fortunately, the cheetahs walked towards us, so we stopped on the road to take many, many photos. Here are just a few . . .

Our daughter joined us for the second half of our month-long road trip and she also enjoyed MZNP, especially our first sighting of an aardwolf! (She is very skilled at seeing critters camouflaged in their surroundings And we often have great animal sightings when she is with us at SANParks.) This species of hyena, smaller than the brown and spotted varieties, is usually nocturnal, so we were very excited to see one during an afternoon drive. The name means earth wolf in both Afrikaans and Dutch. An aardwolf can eat up to 250,000 termites in one night and it is not deterred by strong termite bites on its long, sticky tongue. We went back to the same sighting location the following day in hopes of getting another glimpse of the striped creature, but we didn’t have any luck. 

More animal sightings

And just a few bird photos