Mountain Zebra National Park

Mountain Zebra National Park

The craggy heights of the Mountain Zebra National Park's Bankberg embrace rolling plains and deep valleys, and has become an entrancing preserve for the Cape mountain zebra. The proclamation of the park in 1937 saved these animals from extinction, and currently their population stands at 350. Other mammals found in Mountain Zebra Park include eland, black wildebeest, red hartebeest and gemsbok. Mountain reedbuck and grey rhebok frequent the higher areas, whilst caracal occupy the niche of primary predator.

The Mountain Zebra park is situated 12 km from the picturesque town of Cradock, and is 280 km from Port Elizabeth, 800 km from Cape Town, 800 km from Johannesburg and 1 050 km from Durban. The access route to the park entrance, as well as all internal tourist routes are gravel, whilst roads in the rest camp area are tarred.

The undisputed highlight of the park is obviously the 350 or so Cape mountain zebra after which the park is named. These zebra differ from the plains or Burchell’s zebra, by having narrower stripes, absence of shadow stripes and orange facial colouration. Other noticeable species of the mountain plateau are the red hartebeest, eland and springbok.

In the more wooded valleys visitors should search for kudu, and two of the park’s more recent reintroduction, the African buffalo and the black rhino.