Explore Limpopo
The Mapungubwe National Park is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, primarily due to its famous Iron-Age site known as the Hill of Jackals, thought to be the site of the first kingdom in Africa. The park is situated at the confluence of the Limpopo and Shashi rivers, where South Africa, Zimbabwe and Botswana meet, and is well worth a detour if you have even the faintest interest in archeology. The park is divided into an eastern and a western side connected only by the main road, with a large plot of private land in between. The main entrance is on the eastern side nearest Musina, which is also where you’ll find the Hill of the Jackals and most of the accommodation.
The park offers excellent game viewing with a scenic backdrop of unusual sandstone formations, mopane woodland, riverine forest, and a landscape scattered with otherworldly baobab trees housing wildlife such as elephant, giraffe, white rhino, plus various different antelope, including eland and gemsbok. You can explore the park either in your own car or on three-hour guided morning and sunset drives. If you’re lucky, you may spot predators such as lion, leopard and hyenas, and there are over four hundred bird species including kori bustard, tropical boubou and the magnificent pel’s fishing owl.
The long-term goal is eventually to develop the park into a tri-border park incorporating Mashatu Reserve in Botswana and the Tuli Circle in Zimbabwe.
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Mapungubwe and other archeological sites
Mapungubwe and other archeological sites
As one of the early melting pots of southern Africa, Limpopo has a number of important archeological sites where excavations have helped piece together a picture of the different people who inhabited the land for thousands of years. Some of the most interesting sites are at places where iron was smelted, as the development from what was essentially a Stone-Age culture to an Iron-Age culture, with its associated improvement in tools for cultivation and war, was a vital part of the migration of African tribes into South Africa around 1500 years ago. The presence of slag and other wastes provides the strongest clues – the iron itself seldom survives the processes of erosion. Some of the most revealing excavations have taken place at Thulamela, inside Kruger National Park not far from the Punda Maria Gate, Bakone Malapa cultural village outside Polokwane, Makapan’s Cave near Mokopane, Masorini, also in the Kruger park, not far from Phalaborwa, and the single most important site in Limpopo Province, Mapungubwe (Hill of the Jackals), west of Musina.
