Travel - Eden Park

Eden Park

Introduction

Eden Park [coordinates: -24.4445, 28.6816] is a camping ground about 13km north west of Naboomspruit (Mookgopong), 175km from my home. Like Ruah Park, each campsite has its own private ablution. The campground is on a working farm which produces mainly green peppers in greenhouses.

It is an easy drive from Pretoria, mainly on toll roads, and Waze will guide you all the way to the gate. In order to enter the resort, you have to phone reception to have someone open the gate for you. This can be a problem during load shedding as cell phone reception is very poor.

The staff are very efficient, and bookings can be done by email. During office hours, emails are responded to very promptly.

(updated: 24 April 2023)

Campsites

There are 31 campsites at Eden Park. These are divided into three areas: the Main Camp (16), the Bushveld Camp (11) and the River End Camp (4). Like Ruah, each ablution block is divided into two, for two separate campsites. The campsites are mainly geared towards caravans as the designated camping areas are paved, but the gap between the paving stones is large enough for a tent peg. They do have two grass only campsites (#8 and #9) and we managed to get one of these. [On leaving, we did test our tent on the paving, as pegging the four corners of the inner is critical to the erection of the tent. With a bit of juggling of the alignment of the tent with the paving, we could peg the corners down.]

There is a little stream directly behind tent. The reeds you can see are on the far bank of the stream. In spite of the proximity to the water, we found no mosquitoes. The frogs are pretty noisy at night though!

From the pictures above, you can see the really wonderful amount of shade at Eden Park. The shade on the bakkie was like that for most of the day which meant that the fridge had no problem in maintaining its set temperature. With the tent, the amount of sun was the most it got during the day. As you can see, the grass is very lush and green.

The braai area is paved with more than enough room for tables and chairs.

All the shade did make it rather difficult to use the solar panel for more than a couple of hours, but there are electricity points in the scullery (both caravan and standard South African sockets). After day one, I didn't bother with the solar panel again.

The layout of the ablution block is very similar to Ruah. A scullery which is open to the elements, but under roof.

What was very nice here, because of the wall on the right (as you look at the pic), are the two shelves. These shelves were unbelievably useful.

A montage of the ablution area, with the shower and lavatory on the left and the hand basin on the right. The hand basin is to the right in the left hand pic above.

During our stay, there were only four other sites occupied, so it was very pleasant to wander around the campground.

The Bushveld Camp is a short distance from the Main Camp, with many facilities of the main camp.

The campsites are similar to the Main Camp and has its own swimming pool and kiddies play area.

There are Vervet Monkeys around, and even though they are very skittish, one needs to be careful not to leave anything, that they may regard as edible, lying around. There was a group of nagapies around every night we were there, so be aware that they may also do a bit of shoplifting!

(updated: 25 April 2023)

Things to do

As this is a working farm, there are plenty of farm tracks for hiking or mountain biking. Driving is not permitted on the farm roads.

There are a few antelope species to be seen. We saw kudu, nyala, impala and blesbok and were told there is also a small herd of Blue Wildebees on the farm. Most of the game we saw were between Eddie se Watergat and the vlei area on the bottom left of the map above. The trails that aren't farm roads were mowed and wide enough for three adults to walk abreast - this wide path was a blessing as there were many ticks on the grass stalks overhanging the edges of the paths.

There are route markers all over, which is very useful for making sure where you are on the map.

The walk to the fence via Eddie se Watergat is probably the nicest (and easiest) walk to do. The roads along the fence don't have any shade so I would advise against doing those in the middle of the day. The Krinkhout Road is also very pretty. The Tambotie Road is quite exposed to the sun, so there you also need to choose the time of day for your walk. While we were at Eden Park, all the vlei tracks were very soggy, with quite deep water in places, so not really passable.

We were most successful with our birdwatching activities at our own campsite. A flock of up to 20 White Helmet Shrikes were around many times during the course of the day. As it was out of breeding season, many other species would join this flock in their foraging activities. There was a pair of Bearded Woodpeckers in a tree across the stream who seemed to be building a nest, as they were regularly tapping in the same tree. In the veld we came across many groves of Silverleaf Terminalia (Terminalia sericea). In our experience, this type of woodland is not conducive to birdwatching - the birds do seem to prefer other tree/bush types. As a result, we did not see too much away from the stream flowing past the camp. There is a hide just outside the campground, but unfortunately the dam it overlooks is dry and very overgrown with reeds. We did hear a Fish Eagle on several occasions, but did not see any water body large enough for it to fish. There must be a large dam somewhere close as I did see a flock of about 20 Whitefaced Whistling Duck flying east to west over the campground.

For the less adventurous, there is an entertainment area, which consists of a swimming pool, a kiddies' play area and a games room. From what I could see, there was a table tennis table and a foosball table as well as a TV in the games room.

The mobile data signal is just about non-existent but they do have free wifi covering the whole campground.

(updated: 28 April 2023)

Concluding Remarks

The amount of shade on its own would make me recommend it. An added advantage is the number of walks you can do (if you are fit enough!). A cleaning lady did come around to check on the ablutions and asked if we needed anything done. The braai was cleaned every morning. A security guard wanders around the campground at night and came to introduce himself every evening (he really does patrol as I often saw the beam from his torch during the course of the night).

We recommend Eden Park very highly, especially if your stay is during the week. We heard from two totally separate people that campers can get quite rowdy over weekends. One of these people complained about loud music.

(updated: 27 April 2023)

Equipment tested

• Fridge: Actually this was the second test of the Snomaster Leisure 75L Fridge with minor modifications we had made. With all the shade, I am not sure that these were necessary!
• Stretcher: I really battle to get up off the ground, so bought a stretcher in order to have my hips level with my knees when trying to stand. This stretcher really helped me.

(updated: 27 April 2023)

Campgrounds