We heard from various people that the Tankwa National Park is one of those remote and "unexplored" areas in South Africa. This park was developed in 2005 and is not officially open to the public yet. We decided to investigate.

One of the problems we had was that most of the maps indicate the park borders in the years when the park was only 30,000 hectares big. In the mean while they aquared more land and at the moment the park is 110,000 hectares big.

Some of the last farms they bought, they transformed the old farm houses in guest houses. Four of these guest houses are already available as accommodation. The camping areas have not been developed yet. At the moment the camping areas are more my kind of camping sites, ie. Just a Tree. If you do want to camp you must be 100% self sustainable. There are no water or ablution facilities at the camping sites.

Keep in mind that there are no cell phone reception in this area. There are no shops, ATMs or beauty parlours. The closest fuel stations are

• Ceres 180 Km
• Calvinia 110 Km
• Sutherland 140 Km (closed from Saturday 13h00 for the weekend)
• Middelpos 50 Km (only lead replacement and Diesel closed on weekends, but ask at the Hotel)

If you drive a thirsty 4x4 without an extra fuel tank, you MUST take extra fuel in at least one Jerry can with you. You might be able to drive to the park and back on a tank. But if you do this you take the fun out of the trip because you will be too scared to drive around in the park.

Please note that the park is not officially open to the public yet. You can visit the park but you MUST make arrangements before you visit the park. This area are mostly without telephone services because of copper theft. If you cannot get hold of them, please keep on trying or send them an email. You can contact Letsie at 027-341-1927 or 027-341-2389. Or email her at letsiec @ sanparks.org. As I already said, there are NO cellphone reception in this area.

Now for the trip report, click here to visit page 1