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SKUKUZA — Lounging peacefully on the terrace, watching the elephants, leopards and antelopes gather at the watering hole.

That's how hundreds of football fans will relax in South Africa's Kruger National Park on "soccer safaris", after taking in World Cup matches in the nearby city of Nelspruit.



With 100,000 people, Nelspruit is among the smaller of the host cities and doesn't have enough accommodation for the fans expected to arrive here in June 2010.
So organisers are tapping resources in the tourist magnet of Kruger game park, less than a two-hour drive away.

"Any person who comes so close to Kruger would definitely come to see the game. You cannot miss it if you're that close to it, especially coming from Europe or Asia," said Stephen Nel, a manager at the Berg-en-Dal rest camp.

About 1.3 million tourists each year visit the park, which is about half the size of the Netherlands and has a highly developed network to accommodate guests.

During the World Cup, the camps of Skukuza, Berg-en-Dal and Pretoriuskop will host nearly 2,000 fans in search of South Africa's "Big Five" - elephants, buffalo, leopard, lions and rhinos.

FIFA partner responsible for accommodation, Match, is offering packages that include lodging, transport and safaris, which could mean pre-dawn drives to catch the animals at sun-up, twilight hikes, or dinner in the bush.

To allow the guests to see the football matches, Kruger is reworking its rules. The park currently closes at 18h00, and some games at Nelspruit's Mbombela stadium will only kick off two hours later.



Armed rangers will escort the fans back to their lodges and tents, "to protect them from lions, elephants and other dangerous animals," according to South African National Parks.

"They'll probably change the opening times of the restaurants as most of our guests would be for the World Cup," Nel added.

He said that the camp had welcomed guests from the Rugby World Cup in 1995, but that was on a smaller scale that what organisers expect in 2010.

The World Cup will be the biggest event ever held in this rural province, with Nelspuit building a 46,000-seat stadium for the occasion.



"Initially, there was a shortage of accomodation," said FS Siboza, operations manager for the city.

But he said the new guesthouses have opened in the city, and two other towns are helping to ensure enough beds are available during the tournament, he said.
The city expects new hotels will be built, while some homeowners plan to leave on vacation and to rent out their homes to the tourists.

Organisers are even considering creating tented campsites for visitors, spread around a 200-kilometre (125-mile) radius, including in neighbouring Swaziland and Mozambique.

FIFA wants to ensure that 55,000 rooms are available across the country during the World Cup. Right now there are 34,000, making Kruger's model an appealing option that could be expanded to other national parks.

The only requirement for the "soccer safaris" is that guests can actually see the matches. At Berg-en-Dal, they will be housed in simple cottages built in 1985, without televisions.

The camp is thinking about setting up a TV in a conference room so the fans can watch games in other towns... if they find generators to keep the electricity running.

Labels: berg en dal, nelspruit, skukuza, world cup

SKUKUZA- The patrolling of the two million hectare Kruger National Park (KNP) became a bit easier today when the KNP’s Executive Director, Dr Bandile Mkhize accepted five brand new motorbikes from a generous Gauteng-based sponsor.



“These motorbikes will considerably enhance the effectiveness of the KNP ranger corps by providing them with tools to patrol ever larger areas,” said Dr Mkhize.

The company, Alberton-based Off Road Caravan Safaris, will not only donate the initial five machines, but will also give two machines every year for the next four years. The motorbikes will be a mixture of 230cc, 250cc and a 650cc machines.

Legendary KNP ranger Mr Louis Olivier said that these motorbikes considerably enhance the ability of rangers to patrol the huge areas under their responsibility.

“Using game paths and management or patrol roads, KNP rangers can access remote areas with these bikes, which might not have been accessible by other means,” Mr Olivier said.

The KNP has been using motorbikes as patrol tools-of-the-trade since the mid-1970s. Other patrols are conducted on foot, with bicycles, vehicles and, most recently, an ultralight “Bantam” aircraft which was introduced last year as part of continued efforts to strengthen the anti-poaching patrol methods in the park.

Labels: conservation, rangers, skukuza

NELSPRUIT- Lions killed an impala on a school sports field shortly before an interschools tournament was to be held.

Staff at Skukuza Primary School in the Kruger National Park had to remove the carcass so that the athletics meeting could go ahead on Saturday.

"They killed the buck on the track itself- right on the 80m mark," said school principal Jannie Geldenhuys on Monday.

He said the kill must have happened on Thursday night, because the remains were found on Friday morning.

"We removed bits of guts and other remains still lying there. It was quite safe. The lions were gone already," he said.

He said the lions were later spotted in the village and Kruger rangers chased them away.

He said the athletics track and rugby field, like the rest of the staff village, were not fenced off, unlike the tourist rest camp.

A way of life

The school hosted an annual athletics meeting involving about 250 children from six local schools.

"I showed some of the kids the place where we removed the remains and they enjoyed it," said Geldenhuys.

He said about 400 people, mainly Kruger employees and their families, lived in the village.

"Animals do move through now and then and are sometimes spotted on the rugby field and golf course, but in the day time they move out again.

"All our yards are fenced off. It's quite safe to walk around during the day, but no one is allowed to be on foot after dark- you have to drive. It's a way of life- you have to be careful."

Labels: escaped animals, lions, skukuza

HOEDSPRUIT (Kruger Park Times)- There will soon be a new landmark in the vicinity of Skukuza, in the form of a huge ball– six and a half metres in diameter- balanced on top of a tall steel tower. But despite its impressive dimensions, the new landmark will only be barely visible from a select few sites.

Skukuza will soon be home to the South African Weather Services’ latest remote weather sensing equipment in the form a new radar station, and a lot of work has gone into making the radar ball and its accompanying high-tech equipment as unobtrusive as possible.

After a comprehensive environmental impact assessment process (which included a search for paint suitable both for camouflaging a giant ball in the bush and for allowing free access to radar signals) the department of environmental affairs has given the goahead for the construction of the radar station.

The station will occupy an area of about 18 by 20 metres, but despite its small footprint a lot of effort went into finding a spot where the radar had the least visual impact. This was done by raising a blimp to the expected height of the radar’s spherical radome at each of the five possible sites, and then driving around to see if it was visible from the tourist roads.

The blimp helped rule out many of the sites, until the final site was chosen between a powerline servitude and an old tar road near the old abattoir. As well as the dome, a specially built container will house the electronic equipment that decodes the radar signals and sends the information to the weather service. This will be carefully installed so that it causes least environmental impact.

If the station has to be decommissioned it will also leave little trace of its former existence. The radar station will link up with other stations across the country, and fill a gap in the weather service’s network. It will also link up with a radar station at XaiXai in Mozambique.

The Skukuza area was identified some time ago as a priority area to improve the South African Weather Service’s radar coverage.

The radar stations operate on a line-of-sight basis, and existing stations at Ermelo and Polokwane can only detect the tops of large thunderstorms in the lowveld. The new radar station, which should be up-and-running by March next year, will provide better weather data (especially in terms of rainfall and thunderstorm activity) for agriculture, aviation, and especially for early warning systems for floods such as those that occurred in 2000.

As the radar can produce precise rainfall information in its area of coverage, it will also be of benefit to Kruger’s scientific services. Kruger will receive from the weather service, free of charge, a Titan computer and real-time and archived weather data.

A standard thirty-day appeal period follows the department of environmental affairs giving permission to the project. Assuming that all goes well, the huge fibreglass ball will be cast, painted with radar-friendly paint of the chosen colour and shipped from overseas, likely from a specialist factory in Ireland. The ball will then be erected at the chosen location, and South Africa’s meteorologists will start smiling when their additional weather data starts streaming in from the Kruger National Park.

Labels: climate, skukuza, weather

SKUKUZA- Three lions showed up as unexpected guests while a marathon race was underway in South Africa's famed Kruger National Park, forcing runners to stop until the animals left the road, local media reported on Tuesday.

Three participants of the annual Skukuza Sterling Light half-marathon had a big fright on Saturday when they ran into three lions taking a nap in the middle of the road.

A motorcyclist in front of the athletes noticed them just before the 14km mark and stopped the runners in their tracks.

The nearest field ranger on duty was called and the lions were chased away before the marathon could continue.

But the incident resulted in a large group finishing together, said the newspaper.

On Friday evening, elephants caused havoc in the Skukuza staff village inside the park, which formed part of the race.

The elephants left the village before the race started, but the athletes had to run around heaps of dung, the newspaper said.

Labels: escaped animals, lions, rangers, skukuza

HOEDSPRUIT (Kruger Times)- During the early hours of Wednesday February 16, between five and seven lions decided to take a stroll down the main road through Skukuza village. At about 04h00, Jannie Geldenhuys and Frikkie Rossouw were covering the cricket pitch to protect it for a match later in the day, and at about 04h30 the lions decided to walk onto the field.

Four of the lions were darted when people who had spotted them alerted the rangers and vets. They loaded the lion onto two vehicles and brought them around to the school at about 06h45 just before the start of school.

According to Sharon Gillespie, ”It was amazing. The children were enthralled and extremely curious until the male lifted his head and one just saw kiddie winkles scattering. It was a great day and we are truly thankful to the rangers and vets who brought the lion around for our children to experience- it really was education in action.”

by Lynette Strauss, Kruger Times

Labels: escaped animals, lions, skukuza