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This initiative will address a certain area of the Krugers aesthetic values which are allready partially compromised , so I see no problem as it will hopefully be the means to a good end .

Rob, I have to concede that there is a certain amount of personal adventure included in my idea.

The initiative started with a friend one night when we were planning a trip to KNP. He is a cyclist who has won the Tour de Muarice (Cycle tour of Mauritious (Spelleing?)) so he is quite a capable cyclist. We got to chatting about how it would be to have no noise other than the sound of tyres on tar and the idea grew from that. An unusual way to do the park, and raise funds for one of the problems that threatens the park and more importantly, the inmates.

The idea is not to have it as a one off, I would like to see it as an annual event that happens once a year. I'm sure there are a lot of cyclists who would jump at the chance and prob'ly pay a fair amount for this chance to help conserve nature.

Since traffic volumes are low, there is no need of road closure. I believe that it will not be a hugely invasive venture. How can a few cyclists scare off anything. It is planned that the behaviour will be exemplary in every aspect and above all, we want to be polite and friendly and try to restore some of those old Kruger traditions. Greeting people, sharing where animals have been seen and all that goodwill type of stuff that seems to be lacking in the ultra modern age.

RT the same thought struck me this morning. Why not arrange something down the dirt road that runs all the way next to the western border fence on the outside and you can cycle all the way from Punda gate to Numbi gate. In fact you can then use anything - bicycles, motor bikes, mountain bikes, anything you want to, no problem. You can have a lot of fun and most importantly, it will be on the outside.

There are large welcome signs at entrance gates with the wording "Xamina, Xawena" which means "It is mine, it is yours". Why not use this same slogan and turn it into a huge media event with countrywide coverage on a trip such as this. In fact it can be an anti-speeding and anti-poaching message combined. What with the increase in rhino poaching, etc, attention can be drawn to broken fences and snaring at the same time. "Don`t speed, don`t poach", it is your heritage.This event will no doubt draw a large rural audience as well as there is a large population along the border. Please think about this.

The danger of an escalation of activities inside KNP can be illustrated as follows: For many years the Hon. Rangers have organised the classical music evenings in camps and sometimes in the bush - baroque in the bush - and this has become an accepted event. However, a few years ago, can`t remember all the details, a dinner was organised (think it was by the Compass group, obviously with Sanparks approval) in the bush one evening in the vicinty of Berg en Dal for a group of important visitors. Tables, etc , were set out and loudspeakers were concealed in the bushes. That evening a gospel choir performed but can you imagine the sound. It was probably not audible from Berg en Dal but the bush heard and the bush was seriously disturbed and everyone ate and drank. This is what I mean by an escalation of activities. Today`s demand becomes tomorrow`s norm.

I say again, BH, your idea has merit and RT, thanks for your input. Please consider this thought. KNP is one of the loves of our lives so let`s focus on the sensitivity. Fundraising at Skukuza is a different thing. It is in the staff village, no problem at all, and everyone has fun. I am truly bowled over by the passion and interest on this forum and especially that of the young members, e.g. Batmad and others - wow.

I just found out that there is an annual MTB ride through the Kruger.

The route is somewhere in the region of 350 k's.

So, cycling in the park is not an issue from a safety perspective because it is already being done. Obviously way out of the normal public eye.

I can see that doing something like this on a road bike though will apparently create issues and potentially create the wrong perceptions among tourists. It may even create the wrong idea that it is safe to leave your vehicle. So, now I'm just confused.

Maybe I'll get MTB fit and just do the other tour.

There is also a Kruger marathon (running) and many other daily looney activities which intrude on the sense of place and tranquility .
This can be a well publicised once off activity for a good cause , BH , don't lose heart !

Firstly, let me state that I am against any activities that violate the standard "public rules" of the parks, especially if these activities take place in the public domain. Activities such as mountain bike trails from Olifants, morning walks from various camps, and other "standard, public rule-breaking activities" should be undertaken well away from the general, self-drive, public eye. The generally uneducated public are influenced by the actions and activities of others, and such fund-raising activity and behaviour do influence their own actions, so my view is that such fund-raising activities should not take place in the parks at all, and definitely not in the general public's view.

Having said that, the prime objective of this thread is to curtail speeding in the park, and to suggest ideas of raising funding for this initiative. This can, and should be a self-funding initiative, and I offer the following suggestion:

As we live in the information age, and the world develops more sophisticated electronics, National Parks should consider commissioning the development of a device that replaces the paper currently used at all the entrances to the park. Aside form storing the usual itinerary of the visitor, and all the payments made and due, it could also store information such as average speed, highest speed, duration spent exceeding the limit, route taken, and other information pertinent to their stay in the park. A refundable deposit for each device is payable on entry, and refunded, if no violations committed, upon return of the device on exit. Given that such a device would have to have GPS tracking, it could also identify issues such as speed in excess of 40 on the gravel roads. Given that this device would be used for checking in at each of the camps, violations could be highlighted every time someone moves camps, and not just upon exit from the park. Further, a simple beep upon impending excess speed could warn drivers of this, and provide the immediate opportunity of reducing speed to comply with the requirement. Prevention is better than punishment.

The benefits of such a device could be huge.
- less admin
- quicker service
- less paper
- less speeding, but more income from the perpetrators
- less injury to animals
- and a whole host of other benefits to both the park and the visitors.

Given the availability of current GPS devices (Garmin and Tom-Tom) that are available well below R2000 rand retail, I have no doubt that such a device could be developed and produced for the park for less than R500 each. This required investment would be recovered very quickly, and produce an on-going revenue stream for both this and other initiatives that require funding. The great part of such an initiative is that the rules violators would be funding projects that benefit all.

Just because we have always done something one way, does not make it the best way to do it. There is often a better way!

Scott

Scottm, for what it's worth, I agree with you.

Occassionaly, we get very exuberant (genrally speaking of course) when we come up with an idea to raise funds especially for something we are very passionate about.

Originally, I did not consider the consequesnces or side effects of such a venture in that it might "encourage" people to flaunt the rules, seeing that a bunch of cyclists can get away with it.

We still have a problem though and in the speeding in the parks thread, it has been suggested that GPS is not an accurate devicefor measuring speed. I find this hard to believe, myself, but it has been suggested.

Be that as it may, and with getting into a debate about GPS accuracy, I have suggested the same idea as you in SANPARKS using modern technology to enforce such rules as speeding. Clearly, this will take a long time to put in place and in the interim, speeding remains a problem with animlas being killed every day.

How can we deal with this in the interim other than having a speed checking device under every bush?

Yeah, this shouldn't be too difficult, and it should be a project that almost pays for itself. You use the little stickers, people put them on their windshields, in the little sticker is a transponder with your car details,and you have a few points along a few key routes that pick up the details of the car. Then it's simple math to see if you passed point between point 1 and point 2 outside a certain time. Then from the fines you put up more points etc. I think this is doable and it should actually be a simple system, and not too expensive to develop. But you gotta go for it in small portions. Pick the hot spots, then when the person gets back to their camp they have a nice love letter waiting at reception. Very do-able. If you get the go ahead let me know, I work for an IT consulting company, I am sure I could get someone to research this more in depth etc.

The issues with this system for the identified application are threefold:
1. it is passive, and although can be used for such an application, it is easy to remove the transponder when the intention is to speed (like removing a numberplate on a long journey that has camera traps);
2. it requires readers to be placed all over the park, which in my view is a no-no ;
3. as a passive system, it would be cumbersome to add other applications to it.

The idea should be to ease the general administrative burden for the parks, and as a spin-off, have the ability to monitor general speeding in the parks. There are more important issues for the park's personnel to deal with apart from speeding, but if it can easily be incorporated into an administrative improvement solution, it would be easier for the National Parks to approve ....

Hi Scott, agreed on certain points but, speeding has become one of the most serious issues together & up there with Poaching & other rule breaking.

a nice idea but unfortunately not realistic, passive rfid (flat) are not self powered and requires a reader to be close to respond data (i.e 1meter or so). Thats like the tags u get in cd's at cna etc.
Active ID (for example etag at toll gates) are thicker and cant really be incorporated into a sticker. They are also battery powered to transmit, dont think you going to get some1 to stick that on his windshield out of free will, specially not if he plans to speed.

If however you do handout an active tag when some1 enters the park and he needs to return it when he leaves alot of intelligence can be built into an application to use that data. You can also have the tag anywhere in your car and the reader will still pick it up. By the time you exit at any of the gates your fine will already be nicely printed

Agreed Slowjoe. The nice thing here is you pick one hotspot and you trap everyone between those two points, then from the revenue generated you buy more sensors etc. It's not going to eliminate it immediately, but in the long run this can be a really great system. The problme is initially I believe these scanners things are quite costly.

you need a unit to be at different places daily, we saw a "metro" last weekend on the Phalaborwa - Letaba road, this weekend on friday, saturday and sunday he was in the exact same spot.

thats pretty useless after 1-2 days, especially delivery drivers that drive the road a few times a week.

also trap on dirt roads......

Hi Mods,

Just want to know about this project. Am I right in saying that Mites just realized it is not sensible to have such an event in a National Park with dangerous animals, albeit a fundraiser for a very worthy cause, which still plagues us till today. From what I can see it was not presented to SANParks.

Must say BunnyHuggers proposal looks very much like another one that made news recently.

Hi Duke,

Gee you certainly going back in time here - this was last posted on close to four years ago

The only reason that this proposed project was not presented to SANParks was that it was never finalized into a presentation to present, it ran out of steam as you can see here and no one put together the needed proposal. Having experience yourself of what it takes to run a project, you will appreciate a lot of time needs to be invested in drawing up the proposal and so on.

Looking back through the topic now there is in fact a lot of support for the initial idea recorded here.