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| One of several waterfalls along the Woodbush drive |
This post is also published as trip report on
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On an impulse we decided to have a quick weekend break in Magoebaskloof (Limpopo province of South Africa, between Polokwane and Tzaneen) as we have not visited the area in several years. A forecast of heavy rain throughout the weekend made us decide to not sleep too far from the tar road as we’ve previously struggled on some of the dirt roads in the wet. We stayed at Cheerio Trout Fishing and Holiday Resort, booked through Hotels.com. For the two nights, we paid ZAR1,557, a reasonable price for the self-catering Stone cottage. There was ample room inside with a well-equipped kitchen, small lounge complete with fireplace, comfortable bedroom and en-suite bathroom. The resort has an extensive garden surrounded by indigenous forest and would most likely yield quite a few species but as we didn’t spend much time at the resort, we didn’t explore these. We didn’t plan to target specific species but rather have a relaxed birding weekend, hoping to connect with some of the specials the area has to offer: Cape parrot, Black-fronted and Olive bushshrikes, Olive woodpecker, Green twinspot, Red-backed mannikin, Narina trogon, Knysna turaco Barratt’s warbler, etc.
Ultimately, heavy overnight rain on Saturday night forced us to make alternate plans for Sunday and we ended up spending a couple of hours at the Polokwane Bird Sanctuary, about 60kms west of Magoebaskloof. Having logged only 62 species in the forests on Saturday, this added a significant number of new species and we ended the weekend on 126 species.
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| Mountain wagtail |
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| Swee waxbill |
Friday
Friday afternoon after work we hit the road for the 300km drive to Haenertsburg. Traffic was predictably rough but got worse as we entered Roedtan – a convoy of two abnormal load trucks, their support vehicles and two police vehicles turned onto the road just in front of us. The abnormal loads were so big that we were not allowed to overtake and we had to stick behind them for over 40kms. Several other cars made matters worse by trying to push in front of us as the queue behind got longer. At Zebediela township they finally pulled over and allowed us to pass and we arrived at Cheerio just before 7pm without further issues. It had obviously rained a lot in Magoebaskloof as the 3km dirt road to Cheerio was very wet and severely pot-holed. Luckily this is still a “main” gravel road and the surface quite solid – just very bumpy and unpleasant to drive. Jady, the manageress, arrived shortly after us and led us to the Stone Cottage. Soon after unpacking, we enjoyed dinner in front of the TV.
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| Olive woodpecker |
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| Spider web |
Saturday
It was quite overcast as we left Cheerio around 05:30 but it wasn’t raining and the temperature was very pleasant. Just before turning onto the R71, a chip, chip, chip… in some Eucalyptus trees caught my attention – it was an African goshawk, but after five minutes of searching, we gave up trying to locate it. Ten minutes later we were on the forestry road towards Woodbush drive. Around the De Hoek hut, I heard some squawking that was obviously parrots. Scanning the skies we quickly located one sitting high on a dead tree – it was the endemic and vulnerable Cape parrot! An open patch covered with fern, grass and bracken at the Diepgelegen junction yielded Swee waxbill, Red-backed mannikin and Forest canary with Cape batis calling from the surrounding forest. Around 7am we turned onto the Woodbush drive and slowly descended. About 300m down the road we heard Orange ground thrush calling and soon also had decent views of Terrestrial brownbul and Yellow-streaked greenbul. A little further on we stopped when we heard Olive bushshrike calling and discovered that we were in the middle of a feeding party. We heard and then saw both male and female Black-fronted bushshrikes, Olive woodpecker, Fork-tailed drongo, Grey cuckooshrike, Cape batis, Cape white-eye, Sombre greenbul and Bar-throated apalis. Good sightings further down the road included African olive pigeon, Tambourine dove and Knysna turaco. We reached the end of Woodbush drive (at the R71 tar road) shortly after 10am, and then made a quick stop in Tzaneen to fill up with fuel. There was still a form to complete at Cheerio since the manageress was too drunk yesterday to worry about it, and since they closed at 12:30, we decided to head back to Cheerio for lunch and sort out the paperwork. The form was done quickly and we then sat outside our cottage eating some tuna/mayo rolls. I was hoping to head up towards Dap Naude dam for the afternoon so after finishing lunch we drove up the forestry road just outside Cheerio. It soon became evident though that this was not going to be easy as there were several very muddy patches where we slipped and slid our way through. A friendly local stopped next to us while we were watching five Common buzzards gorging themselves on termites; he strongly advised against us going to Dap Naude dam, saying we would almost certainly get stuck. We heeded the advice and after continuing only for a short section up into some high-altitude grassland, we turned around. At least we found a few new birds in the grasslands: Zitting-, Wailing- and Levaillant’s cisticolas, Red-collared widowbird, Cape longclaw, African firefinch, Jackal buzzard, and Long-crested eagle. Heavier clouds darkened the skies and since we knew the condition of Woodbush drive to be fair, we decided to give this another go. Predictably, it was much quieter in the afternoon and although we saw/heard a number of the same birds from this morning, the only new bird we added was a Square-tailed drongo. Around 15:30 the clouds finally opened and we decided to call it a day. Although the rain eased up and we even had some bright sunshine before we got back to Cheerio, it started raining heavily again at dusk and carried on throughout the night.
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| African dusky flycatcher |
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| Yellow bishop |
Sunday
It was still drizzling when we woke up and the prospect of driving on more wet and slippery forestry tracks didn’t appeal to us – we thought we could go do a few quick hours of birding at Polokwane Game Reserve, around 50kms west at Polokwane, since it’s on the way home anyway. Leaving behind a very wet Magoebaskloof, we arrived at Polokwane Game Reserve exactly at opening time (07:00) but discovered that we wouldn’t be allowed into the reserve as they also had quite a lot of rain and some of the roads were impassable. We didn’t want to waste the entire morning so quickly decided to pay a visit to Polokwane Bird Sanctuary instead. This is a sewerage farm on the north western outskirts of town. We visited here only once before and distinctly remember two things: the birding was very good; and someone got married at the lapa on the premises. Not exactly my first choice of a wedding venue! Anyway, we found the entrance road to the sanctuary quite easily (it’s not that obvious if you haven’t been here before) and quickly started adding birds: Blue waxbill, White-throated robin-chat, Spotted flycatcher, Swainson’s spurfowl, Lazy cisticola. At reception, while we patiently waited for clueless guards and a “manager” to sort out our receipt (I had to show them how to use the carbon-copy and fill out the receipt myself), we heard Brown-hooded kingfisher, Spectacled weaver, Red-eyed dove, Golden-tailed woodpecker, Southern boubou and Croaking cisticola. Finally letting us through the gate, we spent the next 90 minutes exploring the smelly maturation ponds. The abundance of flies didn’t make the experience any more pleasant and the rains they had made several sections of track difficult or even impossible (in my car anyway). But the birding was as good as we remember and by the time we left, we had notched up almost 80 species. Good sightings included African jacana, lots of White-winged terns, Wood- and Common sandpipers, Ruff, Terrestrial brownbul, Glossy ibis, Jacobin cuckoo, Black crake, Great sparrow and several warblers, most of them calling: Willow-, Lesser swamp-, Little rush-, African reed- and Great reed warblers. A long muddy stretch back towards the gate looked particularly nasty so we turned around, only to get stuck in some mud that we just drove through. Luckily I was able to rock the car and get traction again without having to resort to more labour-intensive methods. We left the stink and flies behind just after 9am and turned south to go home. The 3.5 hour drive back was much calmer than Friday afternoon and we got back with plenty of time to put some laundry on and get takeaways for dinner.
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| Common (Steppe) buzzard |
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| Ruff |
Tips/Advice
- Cheerio Trout Fishing and Holiday Resort is located at -23.895668, 29.952847 (Google maps). Our cottage (Stone cottage) was very comfortable and if the weather was really bad, we could easily have sat out the weekend here. There’s no air-conditioner or fan so in summer it could be a little humid but at least the air is always fresh here in the mountains and we never felt too hot. The lady managing the place admitted to being drunk when we arrived on the Friday and we did not feel particularly welcomed. The parking space (a roundabout accessing four different cottages) wasn’t great either and our neighbors, a large group of friends, kept us awake until 11pm.
- The 14km Woodbush drive, although rocky and uneven, was actually in better condition and easier to drive than sections of the much wider forestry roads. Woodbush drive isn’t used by logging trucks so there are essentially no muddy, chewed-up ruts. To access Woodbush drive, head east along the R71 past Haenertsburg. 11.7kms after the stop street at Haenertsburg (where the fuel station is), turn left at -23.868678, 29.995308. There are several signposts here, including ones saying “Woodbush” and “Kuhestan”. There are several tracks leading off from the main road but stick to the most obvious main road, past Kuhestan Organic farm and Woodbush hut for about 4.9kms to -23.838738, 29.985722. Woodbush drive starts from here (turn to the right). There’s a signpost here saying “4x4 only” but we’ve done this road in a Honda Jazz and even when wet, we had no issues at all. There are two access roads forming a small triangle – the first one might be a bit muddy (it was for us on this occasion) but the next turn-off, just 100m further on, is almost always better. If you follow these directions you will start the drive at the top and gradually descend over 14kms before reaching the tar R71 again. Doing it in the opposite direction will be an uphill battle, literally, and is not recommended – there’s also a chain across the road at the entrance to Debengeni waterfall at -23.818928, 30.030445 and although an attendant is there throughout the day and will come running when you approach from the top, we suspect he might not allow you through if you come in from the bottom. You can visit Debengeni falls easily as well – there’s a ZAR10 per person and ZAR10 per vehicle entrance fee. We’ve seen Mountain wagtail every time we’ve been to the falls (we did not visit on this trip) and Grey wagtail’s been spotted here several times in the past. There are lots of picnic spots though and it can get a bit busy and noisy over weekends.
- The entrance to Polokwane Bird Sanctuary is at -23.866042, 29.433860 with the reception and lapa at -23.856532, 29.436695. The access road is not easy to find but this should help: drive north-west out of Polokwane on the Dendron/R521 road. Just after crossing the Sand river, there’s a Sasol fuel station on the left. The entrance to the Bird Sanctuary is 350m after the fuel station on the right and sign-posted by a small brown sign. Be careful here as you need to turn across oncoming traffic. From here, follow the gravel road (there are a few very thin side tracks – just stick to the obvious main road) for about 1.5km to the reception and lapa. After paying the entrance fee, a security guard will open the access gate to the maturation ponds. Keep in mind that this is a sewerage farm: you can never get away from the stink, and flies can be a bit of a nuisance. The roads inside can also become pretty nasty after rain – even with my high-clearance Nissan X-trail, we had to power through muddy bits several times and got stuck briefly once. We also decided to turn around when we saw a long stretch of mud with deep ruts. It really is not a pleasant place to bird but the birding itself is fantastic – we notched up almost 80 species in less than 2 hours. If you can tolerate the smell and flies for a couple of hours, it’s absolutely worth a visit
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| White-winged tern |
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| Maturation ponds at Polokwane Bird Sanctuary |
