Kruger Park: Makuleke Wilderness Area
Self-drive Safari in the Far North

Anti-poaching measures in 2003 and 2004 destroyed more than 1 000 snares and have eliminated illegal hunting. This has allowed the game to flourish. Lions, which were previously almost hunted out by cross-border poachers, have made a return.

The area is a favourite winter grazing ground for elephant from Mozambique, Zimbabwe and elsewhere in Kruger. Leopard love the thick bush environment and prey on the nyala and impala that feed close to the river.

There is a large population of hippos and crocs at the confluence of the Limpopo and Luvuvhu rivers at Crooks’ Corner. Among the more unusual sightings in the Makuleke Reserve are the eland and Sharpe’s grysbok. The birding in the whole area is excellent, with specialities being the Pel’s fishing-owl, black-throated wattle-eyed, orange-winged pytilia, African crowned eagle and racket-tailed roller.

One thing the Makuleke is not short of is baobab trees, which thrive in the basalt soils and dry, hot conditions. The baobabs give the Makuleke the feel of an ancient African landscape. Some of the bigger trees are more than 4 000 years old.

They would already have been mature during the 13th and 17th centuries when the Iron-Age Thulamela dynasty ruled the Limpopo Valley.

Baobabs are ecosystems on their own, supporting communal nests of red-billed buffalo-weavers and red-winged starlings as well as providing nesting holes and food – in the form of insects – for kingfishers, rollers, hornbills and mottled spinetails.

Makulele Heritage

The Makuleke area is rich in human heritage. Co-author Lee Berger, who has been a heritage advisor to the Makuleke, discovered one of South Africa’s earliest Stone-Age sites on the northern banks of the Luvuvhu near Crooks’ Corner. Large stone hand axes from the site are believed to be approximately 1,5 million years old.

The tool-makers were probably Homo ergaster, one of the earliest members of the genus Homo. This period in prehistory was a transitional one with a number of hominid species sharing the African savanna. The last of the gracile and robust Australopithecines (ape men) populations were still in existence but under pressure from the new, bigger-brained genus Homo, the first of our ancestors to master the art of stone tool-making.

During the exploration of the Hutwini Hills, the low rolling ridge of hills south of the main Pafuri Gate road (H1-9), Berger and co-author Brett Hilton-Barber also discovered evidence of one of the world’s oldest games – the maraba. On a flat rock, the professor found a “board” of regularly spaced carved-out holes. The game – a form of Chinese checkers using stones and holes, has been played in Africa since ancient times. Several other “boards” have since been found in the valleys on the lower slopes of Hutwini.

Hutwini also appears to have been an ancient burial ground with as yet unexcavated mounds found in the area. There are several rock art sites in shelters in the sandstone hills. The paintings depict human figures in some form of dance, and recognisable animals include elephant, eland and jackal.

Berger and Hilton-Barber found stone tool manufacturing sites next to a narrow pass through the hills which appears to be an ancient animal highway. Early Stone-Age hunters probably used this pass to ambush game passing through. Among the animals they would have hunted are the extinct buffalo, Pelarovus, which had formidable horns up to three metres long from tip to tip.

The Makuleke Reserve has one of the most dramatic lookout points in all of Kruger. Lanner Gorge is a narrow, winding gorge where the Luvuvhu River has carved its course through sandstone cliffs over millions of years. The vantage point on the rocks high above the river offers sweeping views over northern Kruger and Venda, and the wonderful baobab-dominated sandveld. It was named by Kruger ranger Mike English because of the high density of lanner falcons nesting in the cliffs high above the water.

A trip to Lanner Gorge (right) can be organised from Pafuri Camp, which also offers tours to the Thulamela Iron-Age kingdom site on the southern cliffs of the Luvuvhu. Lanner Gorge can only be accessed by guests staying at the two private lodges in the Makuleke Reserve.

During the past few centuries, the Limpopo served as a trading corridor into the southern African interior from Mozambique. Traders from the Middle East and Far East would stop off on the Mozambican coastline and barter or buy goods from traders who brought skins, salt and gold from the interior.