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Boundless Southern Africa Expedition 11

Boundless Southern Africa Expedition 11

Author: Kingsley Holgate
Date: 2018-01-19

GREAT LIMPOPO

Forever on the move, we load up the Landies and push on - what a beautiful place this continent is. Ahead of us is the challenge of another vast transfrontier area.

Our third TFCA - the Great Limpopo Transfrontier Park - links the Limpopo National Park in Mozambique, Kruger National Park and the Makuleke region in South Africa, and Gonarezhou National Park, Manjinji Pan Sanctuary, Malipati Safari Area and Sengwe communal land in Zimbabwe, into a massive conservation area of 35,000-square kilometres. It comprises savannah plains, granite hills, the Lubombo Mountains, and floodplains of five major rivers.

At sunset on day 32, our dusty convoy reaches the Kruger National Park. Crossing the Crocodile Bridge into the park, the park's media officials usher us to a bush clearing with white, candlelit tablecloths, green canvas chairs, a circle of tents, a roaring mopane fire, and a full moon rising behind an ancient leadwood tree. We add a little water from the SabiRiver to the calabash; already it's a cocktail of many rivers and lakes.

Next day, our convoy trundles on, passing a large herd of breeding elephant wading across the Olifants River. We collect calabash water from the Olifants and the Letaba Rivers and a stone, which, at the end of this Boundless Expedition, we will use with other stones collected from each TFCA to build an isivivane (cairn) as a small monument to transfrontier conservation. Our time in the Kruger ends too quickly. "What a beautiful chapter," comes Ross' voice over the radio. "See you at the Giriyondo Gate - the entrance to Parque Naçional do Limpopo in Mozambique." It's a vast wilderness tagged on to the Kruger National Park.

I scribble in the expedition's Scroll: It's a fledgling park, the habitat beautifully intact, the wild animals slowly returning - it's a park for our grandchildren's grandchildren and beyond, keeping alive Peace Parks' transfrontier vision.' Then wistfully I add, 'But in the future, will it survive the threat of greed and corruption and organised poaching syndicates '

But we all know that for this great extension of the Kruger National Park to work, it needs a huge dose of political will and policing by the Mozambican authorities. That's a daunting challenge.

Over two million hectares of pristine wilderness stretching from the Crocodile River in the south to the Limpopo in the north.