During 2014 we made two trips to the Mountain Zebra National Park. It's near Cradock and is only about 230 kilometres from Bathurst, so it's an ideal destination for two or three days. The park conserves three biomes - the Nama-Karoo, Grassland, and Thicket. It was originally proclaimed in 1937 in order to conserve the endangered Cape Mountain Zebra but, in addition, all the major vegetation types represented are currently very poorly conserved elsewhere, so the park plays a critical role in the preservation of biodiversity. Other animals, such as black rhino, buffalo, cheetah, brown hyaena and lion were reintroduced, after being absent for over 100 years.
Here's a selection of what we saw while we were there:
Although Kudu usually prefer thicker bush, this male just strolled across the road in front of us
and these gemsbok were similarly unperturbed.
Not surprisingly, there are plenty of zebra about. One of the distinguishing characteristics of the Cape Mountain Zebra is their narrower stripes on the head and body, and stripes that do not run under the belly. The stripes on the more common Burchell's Zebra are spaced far apart, with "shadow" stripes in the white bands. They also do not have stripes all the way down their legs.
But it's not all antelope and zebras. There are birds about too!
And then there are a few other interesting mammals. These boys were just out for a stroll when we came across them. They then obligingly flopped down in the shade for a photo shoot!
