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Dear Krugeraddicts

In June Iwill visit the park for two weeks.
I have booked two night at Bateleur.
Does anyone have info regarding the place to be in
the vicinity for good viewing. What dam is best
Rooibosrand or Silwervis

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Bateleur is a great camp !
Haven't been there in the last 5 years, but Rooibosrant was better last time- Silwervis was overgrown with reeds, but 5 years is a long time - just take Sunset dam as an example.
Every time I get there it looks different - sometimes you can't see the water, just hyacinths and two months later it's clear again ?
Another nice thing about Bateleur is that is on the "quieter" side of Shingwedzi - more traffic to the east on Kanniedood side I think?

I was there in November, it's a lovely camp and has it's own hide with a night-light. Rooibosrant was a birders paradise.

I know because I have made a long film from the hide of a very young ellie that was playing with his mother. She was laying on the ground and the little one was crowling over his mother,sliding on his but from a hill, fighting with a little tree and running arouns like a mad man. Very nice place to observe animals.

The units with the best views at Bateleur is #6 & # 7 – we have once stayed in # 6 and it was great. Unit #1 is the closest to the hide.

One of the other units at Bateleur – unfortunately cannot remember the number.



The bush view from “Wielewaal” – think it is # 3



The hide:



Eish, truly a pity that they installed the TV’s

Unit 4
Remember the tree
Not close to the perimeter


After looking back in the postings on Bateleur i still need to comment on the two dams

My fav is Silwervis. Small , very remote and no reeds anymore
Saw fisheagle, great white egret, hamerkop etc.
But, the road to the dam is through thick forest and you could pass a ellie without noticing it.
A very small parking place for 2 cars

Rooibosrant is bigger, with hippo etc. Two parking places

Rooibosrant is huge at the moment.
There must have been an enormous amount of rain in the area this summer.
The road to the two parking areas was covered with water.
We used to see Sable, pygmy mongoose and lots of birds there, but right now there isn't enough space to sit and watch the dam.
It is also too big to really see anything across it.
Up close we saw a small family of Egyptian geese and a crocodile.
We were surprised that we saw nothing else.
We decided not to visit Silwervis as it would probably be similarly overflowing its normal boundaries.

The rooibosrantdam
Left side during the dry season
These are all dead trees

Dam is only accesable to visitors of Bateleur

We visited Bateleur in April this year.
As many of you may know there are two interesting private roads (reserved for guests only) and the one road leads to a surprisingly large dam, Rooibosrant Dam.
I was amazed at the tranquility of the dam and its location is almost eerie; very secretive and remote.
We didn’t see much at the dam in terms of animal sightings but I must say that the water bird life is prolific!
I have read about some very interesting sightings at Rooibosrant Dam, one, a remarkable sighting by the infamous nature photographer, Nigel Dennis involving a lioness hunting a warthog, by the dam’s edge, at very close range.
At Bateleur, I examined the sightings book and noted some very interesting sightings that had been seen at the dam, including roan, sable, lion prides and wild dog.
Does anyone have an interesting sightings to report from Rooibosrant Dam, one of the KNP’s best kept secrets…?

I stayed at Bateleur last year and visited the dam on many occasions.
On the way to the Dam one morning i had my very first sighting of not one, but two Honey Badgers crossing the road in front of my car....at the dam was Sharp's Grysbok sitting in the open under a bush on its own.
The bush was no more than 60cm high...it was not concerned by our presence at all....
herds of game came to drink and lovely pride of lion lay on white sand for about an hour before making off...
I would estimate the dam to have been less than 5% full.
This was in September 2005.

Those are really amazing sightings Aquilla!
(Ironically I posted a reply on the badger topic in the animal’s forum on the same night as I posted this topic on Rooibosrant Dam! Very weird! I suggest that you add this wonderful sighting on that badger page too…)

heres a pic of fleeing Sable taken as you reach the dam

Enjoyed the dam very much.
Was half ful when we were there.
Had a group of about 10 hippo taking a tan, 2 fish eagles calling in the dead treas.
But saw no cats or other special sightings.
Visited the dam twice
The eerie trees.

Regarding the Rooibosrant Road ..friends from across the road have just come back from Bateleur and said it was great and said the Ranger Lombard caught a car at the dam that was not resident in the camp ... big fine apparently.... way to go Parks Board at last they are keeping these gawkers away!!