Stephen GrayUnspoilt places
Borakalalo means (in Setswana) the “relaxing-place”, and it encompasses what previously was known by red-faced fisherfolk as the Klipvoor resort. Boetie with his latest bait still wades out through the reeds to reel in a gasping silver, yellow-streaked common carp, with scales like rand coins – at his own risk these days, as the surroundings are now restocked with crocodile and hippo. By Monday morning black-backed jackal and squirrel move back in to fillet the bones.
“Sanctuary” would be as good a translation. Because Borakalalo has no lion, the relationship between game and visitors is altogether less tense. There is no elephant either, so the woodland is in much better shape, too.
I know of no other South African national game reserve where one may park and just go strolling off into the bush. With my companion I happened across the marked-out Noka Trail, not on any map we could find.
This path, we learnt, followed the south bank of what used to be the Pienaar’s River, lifeline of earlier farmers in the area, which in 1984 was re-Bop-tised into the wildest African Moretele River. Entering the hushed, pristine riverine forest, we ventured on. I felt the worst we could do was blunder into a white rhino (the one on the R1 stamp – never mind the wrong caption). It would be crawling with oxpeckers, prong on target, ears focusing.
But we had not counted on baboons, a large pack of them, crackling in the thorns, encircling us. A war of nerves ensued. The odd bark was fired off. Those orange-yellow, close-together eyes giving us an ancestral squizz. At the wrong end of a pair of binoculars. At last they crashed off.
We were attempting to bird-spot, but now we stumbled on to the leguaan road. One after the other, four in all: great yellow-speckled, hissing, slack, shambling dragons. Hell on eggs.
What Borakalalo National Park really has to offer is superb walks like these. Volunteers take groups through areas not normally open to the public. The entire north-east half of the reserve is zoned for more professional footslog safaris.
For day-trippers there are more than enough gravel drives through the sandveld. Remarkably these live up to their names: Thutlwa has giraffe, the Tholo Loop has kudu, the Serolo stretch indeed has bushbuck. At Kgokong Link: blue wildebeest sheltering their wobbly, brown offspring.
The Audi Loop, named after the fish eagle, is a sensational dam-side trap for waterbirds: Egyptian geese coming in, great crested grebe, marabous to rely on, huge yellowbilled storks. If you are not too skilled at telling your bartailed godwit from your burntnecked eremomela, your cisticolas from your sagittariidae, be consoled: you are bound in summer to find a vast Wahlberg’s Eagle flapping right overhead. Or the great Borakalalo megatick for birders: a pair of early morning African Hawk Eagles, ascending in lazy spirals into the unending cumulus.
Foreign guests may be enchanted with the bee-eaters, the flashing rollers. And the Sefudi Dam has the prettiest hide for thermosing, while weavers work all about.
The park offers three camping sites. The Phudufudu Camp is on a bushy hillside, for a private party of 12 around a boma and pool – the sort of place where, while guests take lanterns to their zip-up tents, the staff returns to electrified houses. The other two are bring-your-own-accommodation sites, along the Moretele and right on the dam under Piljane Koppie – a real tradition of catfish braai and Castle.
The gushing damwall is the centrepiece. Grey herons patrol it, reed cormorants hold out their wings, signalling: send me the sewage. We noted other visitors were badly disciplined as regards refuse, spoiling the paradise effect the North West Parks Board has created.
Borakalalo is open daily from dawn, for a modest fee per person. Although the shop at the entrance supplies the staff with sixpacks and Sunlight soap, be advised to stock up your own picnic-basket with more than a watermelon. We found the shop was closed for “stocktekking” anyway. The nearest provisions otherwise are all the way back in Brits.
From Brits take the R511 north for 63km, turn right on to dirt to Leeupoort for 6km, then right and follow the signs to Klipvoor Dam. Two hours travelling by car from Johannesburg.