Pafuri Camp
Northern Kruger
National Park, Limpopo Province, South
Africa
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PAFURI CAMP
- NORTHERN KRUGER NATIONAL PARK, SOUTH AFRICA
Pafuri Camp is situated between the
Limpopo and the Luvuvhu Rivers in the northern sector of the Kruger
National Park. The camp's home is a 24,000-hectare area called the
Pafuri or the Makuleke. This region is the ancestral home of the
Makuleke people and is one of the most diverse and scenically attractive
areas in the Kruger National Park.
This area is certainly the wildest and
most remote part of the Kruger Park and offers varied vegetation, great
game viewing, the best birding in all of the Kruger, and is filled
with folklore of the early explorers and ancient civilisations. It
is well known for its fever tree forests, beautiful gorges and Crook’s
Corner, where the Limpopo and Luvuvhu rivers and three countries,
Zimbabwe, South Africa and Mozambique, meet. The region is considered
one of Kruger's biodiversity hotspots, with some of the largest herds
of elephant and buffalo, leopard and lion and incredibly prolific
birdlife.
Pafuri Camp caters for the traditional
Kruger Park visitor and is the only camp accessible to self-drivers
in the extreme northern sector of the Park. Being so different from
the rest of the Kruger Park, it complements the scenery and experience
offered at the lodges in southern Kruger and the Sabi
Sand. Travellers
visiting the lodges or camps in the south can experience the Kruger
in its entirety by including the Pafuri / Makuleke region in their
itineraries.
Accommodation  For
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Camp
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Accommodation consists of 20 tented rooms
(including six family rooms for up to four people), each with en-suite
bathroom facilities. These
are East African-style "Meru" tents that can accommodate two
people comfortably per tent. Each tent has en-suite facilities and each
tented room is under a shaded thatch canopy under canvas.
The tented rooms
all look out over the Luvuvhu River and guests can sit on their decks
and watch for elephant, nyala, waterbuck or bushbuck coming down to
drink – to
name but a few!
The camp facilities include:
• Dining
and bar area are under a canopy of majestic ebony trees.
• Large swimming pool
• Dinners served in a traditional style boma under the stars, on
wooden decks overlooking the Luvuvhu River or indoors under thatch.
• Fully
stocked bar with a good selection of South African wines. The costs of
these will be billed to your room and are payable on departure.
• Same-day laundry facility is available at a charge.
Electricity and Water
• Power from generator and 220 volt power inverted from a battery
bank.
• Constant 220 volt power to rooms for battery charging, razors
etc.
• Potable water to the camp comes from strong boreholes.
• Overhead fans have 24-hour power.
Pafuri Camp is sold on a dinner, bed
and breakfast rate with activities and lunch as extras. There is no
child restriction at this camp.
Flying Times
To/From Johannesburg
Grand Central 1hr 40 minutes
Scheduled Sefofane seat rate service operating
3 times a week on Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays from mid-to-late
2005. Minimum 2 passengers
Driving Time
To/From:
Phalaborwa Airport +/- 5
hours
Timbavati Camps +/- 5.5 hours
Johannesburg Airport +/- 6.5
hours
Nelspruit +/- 6 hours
Activities
Activities
in the Makuleke / Pafuri area are extremely varied and interesting. Game
drives in open 4x4 vehicles, night drives, walks and hides (including
some that will cater for sleep-outs) are all part of the range of activities
that are on offer.
One of the most important aspects of
this area is its palaeo-anthropological history, with its plethora
of evidence of early human ancestors stretching back some 2 million
years ago, through the Stone Age and into the Iron Age about 400 years
ago when the Thulamela dynasty ruled in this area. This dynasty built
incredible structures that are not dissimilar to that found in the
Great Zimbabwe. Throughout the concession, there is evidence of its
human inhabitants, in the form of rock paintings and artefacts – under many a baobab are Stone
Age hand tools, such as hand axes, to be found.
Guests can self-drive
in and around the Kruger National Park on the conventional roads in their
own vehicles. There is no self driving at all in private vehicles anywhere
in the Makuleke concession except on the main access road into and through
the area. If guests wish to walk, game drive or night drive anywhere
on the concession, this is done in Pafuri Camp's 4x4 vehicles with its
resident guides - all at additional cost. These activities
can be pre-booked at the time of reservation or when in camp
• We also offer guided morning walking and birding safaris of between
3 to 4 hours
• Guided safaris including brunch overlooking Lanner Gorge +/- 6
- 8 hours
• Guided night drive +/- 3 hours
• Shorter guided walks +/- 2 hours
• Specialist birding walk/drive +/- 3 hours
• Mountain bike safaris +/- 3 hours
• Specialist safaris on the history and archaeology of the area
+/- 2 hours
• Lunch including drinks at game viewing hides +/- 3 hours.
Game Viewing
The Pafuri region boasts fully three-quarters of the Kruger's wildlife
and vegetative biodiversity, with many large mammal species and incredibly
prolific birdlife. It is famous for the large herds of elephant and
buffalo that are resident most of the year round, which concentrate
in particular around the permanent waters of the Luvuvhu River in
the dry winter months. Leopard have been sighted hunting the strong
population of nyala and impala that live alongside the Luvuvhu system.
On the easternmost boundary at "Crooks Corner", the Luvuvhu
supports a large population of hippo and crocodile.
The Limpopo and
Luvuvhu rivers host the highest density of nyala in Kruger, plus species
such as eland, Sharpe's grysbok and yellow-spotted rock dassie, which
are difficult to find further south in the Park. A drive along
the floodplain and riverine fringe of either of the two large rivers
usually produces good general game in the form of nyala, impala, greater
kudu, chacma baboon, waterbuck, warthog and perhaps grey duiker or bushbuck,
while careful searching may yield the more elusive residents of the area
such as lion and leopard. Other areas hold steenbok, the agile klipspringer
and herds of Burchell's zebra. Recently, species such
as giraffe and white rhino have been relocated to the area, from which
they have been locally extinct for almost a century.
The area
has long been regarded as something of a Mecca for southern African
birdwatchers. Some species are found nowhere else in South Africa and
the serious birder will revel in being able to find Böhm's and
Mottled Spinetails, Racket-Tailed Roller, Three-Banded Courser, and
Southern Hyliota. Other specials are Black-Throated Wattle-Eye, Pel's
Fishing Owl, Yellow White-Eye, Meve's Starling and Tropical Boubou.
Makuleke Concession
The Makuleke Concession is in the extreme northernmost sector of the Kruger
National Park and is located between the Limpopo and Luvuvhu Rivers
in what is also known as the Pafuri region. To the north and east lies
Mozambique and Zimbabwe. This area is destined to become the core of
the new Transfrontier or "Peace" park that will straddle
South Africa, Mozambique and Zimbabwe.
The Makuleke / Pafuri is one of the few
true wilderness areas left in South Africa and the vegetation is so
different to anything else within Kruger, that one might be forgiven
for thinking himself to be in Central Africa! The large trees in this
area are usually nearly 50% taller than most baobabs, and scenically,
the area is diverse, with stunning mountains, shady, deep gorges, forests
of Yellow Fever trees and groves of Baobabs, Mopane woodland, and open
savannah grassland. The area is a true contrast to the rest of the
Kruger National Park and a visit here truly rounds off the Kruger experience
of the southern lodges.
Although this 24,000-ha area comprises
only fractionally more than 1% of the total area of the 2.2 million-hectare
Greater Kruger National Park, 75% of all species in this region occur
at Pafuri: nearly 400 birds species and over 100 mammal species make
up some of the more visible aspects of this incredible biodiversity.
The Owners
The most recent human inhabitants of the area were the Makuleke people
who were forcibly removed from the region by the former Nationalist
Party government of South Africa in 1969. In a landmark restitution
in 1997 the Pafuri area was returned to the Makuleke who, in a farsighted
decision, decided to keep the land within the national park and to
manage it accordingly. In a 45-year mutually beneficial lease, Wilderness
Safaris has partnered with the Makuleke community, bringing its own
brand of sensitive and authentic ecotourism to the region. The Makuleke
benefit from skills transfer, job creation, training, and community
development projects. In return Wilderness Safaris is able to operate
in perhaps the most remote, pristine and diverse area in Kruger and
to share this with their guests.
The benefits of Pafuri Camp come
in the form of direct cash, training, skills transfers, jobs and
community development projects that have the lodges as their direct
patrons. The Makuleke Communal Property Association (CPA) is a Trust
that has been set up to benefit all of the Makuleke people who live
in the Makuleke villages outside of the Kruger National Park. The
Trust represents all the Makuleke people who lived in the area prior
to 1969 and ensures that benefits flow to the community as a whole.
Background to
the Land Restitution of Makuleke
The Makuleke people won their land back under the democratic South African
Government's land restitution process that allows people who were forcibly
removed off their land any time after 1913 to claim their land back through
a formal land claim process. The Makuleke people were awarded their land
in 1997, and could have moved back into the area - but have elected to
stay where they are and to keep this area as part of the Kruger National
Park and to ensure that the conservation of the area is continued.
As
one of the first tribes to get their land back in a formally protected
area, the Makuleke have received a lot of attention, as this was viewed
as a groundbreaking process that could make or break conservation in
the post-Apartheid South Africa. Many old timers thought that this was
the end of conservation in South Africa. To quote a senior conservation
official in 1997, "If the Makuleke claim is upheld in respect of
land within the Kruger Park, all conservation areas will be under threat.
Conservation status will not be worth the paper it is written on." The
Makuleke people and Wilderness Safaris have vowed to make this area a
showpiece of what communities, formal conservation authorities
and ethical private sector partners can achieve when they work together
for the benefit of all stakeholders as well as for the long-term conservation
of the area.
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