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Pilanesberg National Park |
Pilanesberg National Park, Sun City, North West Province ( South Africa)
The Pilanesberg National Park is located in close proximity to the Sun City Resort making it ideal for safari tours. Being home to Africa’s Big Five ( lion, elephant, rhino, leopard and buffalo), the Pilanesberg National Park is he fourth largest national park in South Africa. It protects over 500 sq km of an unusual complex of extinct volcanoes.
The countryside of the Pilanesberg National Park is attractive, with rocky outcrops, ridges and craters, and is mostly covered in sparse woodland. The Pilanesberg mountain range forms four concentric mountain rings, with Mankwe Lake at the center of an extinct 1200 million year old crater. The circular layout of the Pilanesberg National Park is linked to prehistoric times when this region was a fiery crater of a volcano. Around the central Mankwe Dam are three rings of little hills which are mounds of cooled lava.
At the Pilanesberg National Park (Sun City), there are two vegetation zones: Kalahari thornveld and sour bushveld.
Until the 1970s, the Pilanesberg was used as farmland. Subsequently is was recognized as an ideal region for a national park. The individual farms were joined together and this area was proclaimed as the Pilanesberg National Park. Restocking the overgrazed farmland turned into one of the most ambitious game relocation ventures ever attempted in South Africa. Referred to as the Operation Genesis, the relocation involved the release of 6,000 mammals of 19 species into the newly established game reserve: the Pilanesberg National Park.
Today the national park is home to extensive populations of many of Africa’s most impressive animals such as white and black rhinos, elephants, giraffes, hippos, buffaloes, a wide variety of bucks ( sables, elands, kudus and gemsboks), zebras, leopards, lions, jackals, hyenas and even cheetahs. Since the early 2000, African wild dogs can also be seen in the Pilanesberg National Park. The Pilanesberg is also home to a number of birds, notably a variety of raptors. Cape vultures nest on the steep cliffs of the Magaliesberg Mountains and a number of feeding stations have been established to encourage the survival of this endangered bird.
Accommodation in Game Lodges in the Pilanesberg National Park ( Sun City) are the 5 star Tshukudu Bush Lodge as well as the four star Kwa Maritane Bush Lodge and Bakubung Bush Lodge each of which provides visitors with an unforgettable experience of the African bush. For further information on these lodges, go to South African Lodges. |
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