By Roxanne Reid
There’s something special about the atmosphere of the bushveld camps in the Kruger National Park. They’re quiet, without shops or restaurants, so there’s a sense of being closer to nature. After camping in the Kruger National Park for a couple of weeks, we treated ourselves to two nights at Shimuwini Bushveld Camp – with mixed success.
There’s something special about the atmosphere of the bushveld camps in the Kruger National Park. They’re quiet, without shops or restaurants, so there’s a sense of being closer to nature. After camping in the Kruger National Park for a couple of weeks, we treated ourselves to two nights at Shimuwini Bushveld Camp – with mixed success.
Once you leave the tar road to drive along the riverfront S141 to Shimuwini Buishveld Camp, northwest of Letaba in the northern section of Kruger, you find a different world where only people visiting Shimuwini are allowed. It’s a blissfully peaceful drive, winding along among silver cluster leaf, leadwood, mopane and baobab trees, stopping in a pull-away to look out over the river and watch the wildlife that lives there or comes to drink.
Shimuwini is a Shangaan word meaning ‘place of the baobab tree’. The living and eating area of our chalet was outdoors in a deep porch under thatch that was cool even at midday. There was a gas stove and a fridge that ran on generator-powered electricity for part of the day. One bedroom looked out on to the porch and river through big glass sliding doors, the other had a window overlooking the river.
By far the chalet’s best feature was the view out over the green grass and jackalberry trees to the river beyond. We could kick back and relax in the shade to watch warthog, crocodile and a hippo with a teeny-tiny calf no bigger than its mom’s head, impala, kudu or waterbuck grazing on an island in the river.
There was a host of birds from pied, brownhooded and great kingfishers to blackcrowned night heron and greyheaded bushshrike. Yellowbilled hornbill, crested barbet, blackheaded oriole and green pigeon feasted on the jackalberry fruits right in front of our chalet. We saw tree squirrels chasing each other in the trees, watched kurrichane thrushes hopping along the ground in search of food and listened to the insistent ‘three blind mice’ call of the chinspot batis. All of this without leaving camp.
As the afternoon cooled and the sun prepared to set we’d take a walk along the riverfront to the hide overlooking the river where we might find black crake, goliath heron, a group of seven water thick-knees, go-away birds squawking from the trees or arrow-marked babblers jabbering nineteen to the dozen.
As the afternoon cooled and the sun prepared to set we’d take a walk along the riverfront to the hide overlooking the river where we might find black crake, goliath heron, a group of seven water thick-knees, go-away birds squawking from the trees or arrow-marked babblers jabbering nineteen to the dozen.
On one of these walks we heard an elephant ripping grass and found him about six metres from the camp fence, mobbed by a clutch of visitors wielding phone cameras. We watched for a little while and then moved on to the hide. The bull endured the humans’ excited chittering for a while before he lost patience; he turned to face them and stood tall on his front legs holding his head high – a telltale sign of irritation. Then he turned and stomped off through the water, swish, swish, below us at the hide. We could almost have reached out to touch his back.
Shine the duiker
Shimuwini used to be the home of Shine the grey duiker. Her mother was killed by a leopard and Shine arrived at Shimuwini with her umbilical cord still attached in 1993. She was raised by the camp manager’s wife and became a popular attraction around the camp.
She didn’t leave camp often or for long, and was a guest of honour at weddings and functions. Her luck finally ran out in mid 2015 when she too was killed by a leopard. She was 22 years old, even though duikers seldom live beyond 12 years in the wild.
Our shabby chalet
Shimuwimi was originally built in the early 1990s although the SANParks website says it is ‘the most modern of the bushveld camps, being completely rebuilt after the floods in 2000’. But our cottage No. 14 was looking really old and scruffy, badly in need of maintenance if not a full revamp.
Shimuwini used to be the home of Shine the grey duiker. Her mother was killed by a leopard and Shine arrived at Shimuwini with her umbilical cord still attached in 1993. She was raised by the camp manager’s wife and became a popular attraction around the camp.
She didn’t leave camp often or for long, and was a guest of honour at weddings and functions. Her luck finally ran out in mid 2015 when she too was killed by a leopard. She was 22 years old, even though duikers seldom live beyond 12 years in the wild.
Our shabby chalet
Shimuwimi was originally built in the early 1990s although the SANParks website says it is ‘the most modern of the bushveld camps, being completely rebuilt after the floods in 2000’. But our cottage No. 14 was looking really old and scruffy, badly in need of maintenance if not a full revamp.
In the kitchen, the fridge shelves were rusted to hell, the back was totally iced over. There was encrusted filth on the floor tiles (especially in the corners), as if all a dirty mop had done was push dirt around then allow it to dry. There were cracked and dirty walls, whole colonies of web-trapped insects along the kitchen door, evidence that it hadn’t been dusted for months if not years.
In the bedroom there were small droppings on the beds and side tables; after I cleaned them away they didn’t return for the rest of our two-day stay. There was broken thatch in two places, a torn curtain and a congregation of broken curtain rings.
Things were no better in the bathroom. The net curtains were stiff with dirt and dust. There were broken, missing or badly replaced bathroom tiles, some of them not even vaguely matched. There were bare screws where a mirror had been mounted on the wall above the basin, but the mirror was long gone; someone had complained about it in the guest book three months earlier and still nothing had been done about it.
Things were no better in the bathroom. The net curtains were stiff with dirt and dust. There were broken, missing or badly replaced bathroom tiles, some of them not even vaguely matched. There were bare screws where a mirror had been mounted on the wall above the basin, but the mirror was long gone; someone had complained about it in the guest book three months earlier and still nothing had been done about it.
Shimuwini is a pretty camp, set among the natural bush and overlooking the river so the surroundings can’t be faulted. All the more frustrating, then, to find such substandard accommodation at a fairly steep cost.
Come on Kruger, you can do better!
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Come on Kruger, you can do better!
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Copyright © Roxanne Reid - No words or photographs on this site may be used without permission from roxannereid.co.za
Copyright © Roxanne Reid - No words or photographs on this site may be used without permission from roxannereid.co.za
