Year in the Wild Blog

Frogging good time at Bontebok!

While we were staying at Bontebok, the park was hosting a Pick n Pay ‘Kids in Parks’ group of grade 7 children from H. Venter Primary School in Ashton, with their teacher Jacobus du Toit. On our second night we went to join them for a frog talk and excursion that rangers Masindi Raselabe and Johannes Matabata and community officer Marloise Groenewald from
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Bontebok National Park…small but special

The Bontebok National Park near Swellendam in the Western Cape is the smallest national park in the country - just 3495 hectares - but has been so important for the survival of South Africa's rarest antelope.

The park was originally established in 1931, taking over from a group of farmers who had, in 1864, realised the importance of protecting the last remaining bontebok from extinction. Colonial hunters had reduced their numbers from probably several hundred thousand to just a hand full.
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De Hoop Nature Reserve…whales, water and wind!

The big, beautiful, bountiful De Hoop Nature Reserve…that’s where we are now. It’s just east of Agulhas National Park, and is quite similar in landscape, but because it’s been a conservation area for longer, there’s a greater sense of wilderness.

And the locals say there’s no better place in the world to see
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