Mapungubwe offers you a National Park, a transfrontier conservation area, a UNESCO World Heritage Site and the remains of a Lost Iron-Age City in one destination.
Mapungubwe National Park
Mapungubwe is South Africa’s oldest organised trade centre and human settlement and you can trace the spirituality of our ancestors with a guided tour of Mapungubwe Ruins. Visit the Mapungubwe Interpretive Centre to view all the artefacts on display (including the Golden Rhino, the symbol of Limpopo Province).
The park can be experienced by sedan vehicle, although there are also several 4×4 only routes and on foot at several get-out points, or by reserving guided walks. The park offers an astonishing botanic diversity – a plethora of baobab trees, (some well over 1000 years old and with girths of 10m wide); riparian gallery forests, Pod Mahoganies, the jaundiced Fever Trees and many more.
The park is still home to all the large mammals of the African Savannah ecosystem. It is especially good for elephant and leopard. Over 400 bird species can be spotted. The park is in a transition area for many arid western bird species and more moisture loving eastern Lowveld species.
Mapungubwe is also the meeting point of South Africa, Botswana and Zimbabwe. At the confluence of the Limpopo and Shashe Rivers a wonderful network of pathways and viewing decks are provided. Also called Poacher’s Corner, because in times gone by bandits, smugglers and poachers were able to choose between three countries to evade any authorities that might be pursuing them.
Mapungubwe offers an excellent choice and standard of accommodation at Leokwe (a camp surrounded by sandstone cliffs and rings of baobab), the Limpopo Forest Tented Camp (set in the gallery forest of the Limpopo) and the Vhembe Wilderness Camp.
The rich biodiversity, great scenic beauty and the archaeological treasures of Mapungubwe, make it one of the most interesting places in South Africa to visit.
