Travel - Ruah Park

Ruah Park

Introduction

Ruah Park [coordinates: -25.5248, 28.4974] is a camping ground to the north of Pretoria, 50km from my home. The nice thing about this campground is that each campsite has its own private ablution. Because of its proximity to Pretoria, like Willemsrus, the campground is very popular, especially over weekends, when it can get quite crowded.

Ruah Park is off the Moloto Rd about 10km S (as the crow flies) of Dinokeng. The road is tarred all the way to the turn off to the campground where a good gravel road leads to the gate.

It is an easy drive from Pretoria, and Waze will guide you all the way to the gate.

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

(updated: 31 March 2023)

Campsites

The layout of the campsites follows an alphabetical naming system, with each letter representing a double ablution block.

The campsites are absolutely stunning. It's a long time since I have seen grassed campsites.

As you can see, the grass is very lush and green. The blesbok is a loner on the campground, and sometimes hangs out with the herd of nyala that are also on the property. In the picture above, you are looking at the F and G ablution blocks with their campsites.

Our campsite, with the tent almost pitched. Above the tent, you can see the K ablution block. These two pics should give you a feel for the distance between campsites.

Below the letter E on our ablution, is the electrical distribution board for the ablutions and on either side is a power socket for a caravan plug. The bin is shared between the two campsites, and each has a braai which can be moved around. There is an electrical geyser on the rear side of the ablution block which is shared between the two campsites.

The ablution block is well designed, with most of the facilities that you need.

The left hand pic in the montage above shows the scullery on the outside of the building. It is undercover, with a decent overhang for shade. Next to the door into the bathroom, above the light switch is a standard South African plug socket, with a similar one on the left hand side of the sink (just out of the picture). Both of these seem to be linked to the light fittings, so I would advise you to rather use the caravan socket than these. Things that I feel are missing in the bathroom are a receptacle for soap next to the hand basin and a shower curtain - water does splash into the bathroom.

As you can see from Map 2, there is also a cottage on the grounds called Aloe Ridge Farm House. This can be rented.

Note that the swimming pool, although close to the cottage, is also for the use of the campers.

As the campground is fairly close to the Moloto road (see Map 1), it can be a little bit noisy at night - depending on the wind/air movement at the time. Other night noises such as owls, nightjars and even the lions in Dinokeng are more soothing!

(updated: 26 March 2023)

Things to do

What is really nice is that this is not a massive property, but the owners have gone out of their way to have activities for the guests. First off is that there are trails through the bush on the property.

The trails are all nicely signposted.

We did do the Likkewaan trail, but although there was no climbing involved, the loose stones on the path made it extremely tricky - even when carrying only bineys and a camera. Because of the rocky nature of the area, all the trails seem to have this problem.

What I really would recommend is decent boots to protect your ankles, and a stout walking stick for something to support yourself.

They have also catered for the kiddies. In addition to the swimming pool, there is also a kiddies playground.

In the reception building, next to the swimming pool, there is a lounge area with a TV if you absolutely have to watch TV.

Fishing is permitted in the dams, on a catch and release basis. Evidently there is carp in the dams, but we only saw barbel breaking water in the large dam.

A boat is available for use on the large dam.

Birdwatching was rather tricky during our stay as the bush is quite thick. We did not see a lot of birds in the three days we were there (our list was 48 species). One nice sighting was a Wahlberg's Eagle in the valley below the big dam. There is flock of Mallards on the property and these were very aggressive to each other and any other bird that came within their range. We saw them chasing a Black Crake. I think the presence of these Mallards is probably the reason for the lack of other indigenous waterbirds. With all the water-lilies on the large dam, I would have expected jacanas. The sheltered nature of the smaller dams would also suit Black Duck.

If you are looking for something a bit more exciting, like big game, it's not too far to the Dinokeng Game Reserve. Using the De Wagensdrif Road, the Nyati Gate is about 18km from Ruah. From there it's probably another 15km to the Wilderness Way Gate, however, this is all on De Wagendrif Road. As I said in my review of Willemsrus, the corrugations on this road are really bad. You can go via the Ts'ukulu Gate on the Boekenhoutskloof Rd (18km), but from there you have to find a way on to the self drive roads. I have no idea of the condition of the Boekenhoutskloof Rd.

The mobile data signal is not good. There is no MTN connection and the Vodacom signal is terrible during the day - probably due to congestion on the tower serving the area. You can get quite decent speed before 06:00, but by 08:00 this degrades to an unusable level (I had to put my phone in airplane mode to conserve the battery). Don't rely on mobile data for either business or amusement while you are visiting Ruah Park.

(updated: 31 March 2023)

Concluding Remarks

With the lovely grass on the campground, I have to recommend it. What did bug me most of all was the lack of shade. Some sites could work, but in the summer sun, most do not. The staff are unobtrusive, except on mowing day (which is not a problem). The ablutions are not serviced while you are there, which I really do like as no-one is in your private space. But what this also means is that the braais are not cleaned - you have to throw away the ash from your previous night's braai.

We recommend Ruah very highly, especially if your stay is during the week. On leaving on the Friday, we passed five caravans coming in - weekends will be hectic.

(updated: 24 March 2023)

Equipment tested

• Fridge: The Snomaster Leisure 75L Fridge battled with the lack of shade, but still performed well.
• Jackery: The Jackery Explorer 500 Power Supply and the Jackery SolarSaga 100W Panel were given their first camping test. Both performed very well.
• Stove: Although we had used the Alva Single Burner stove quite often at home, this was the first time we took it on a camping trip.
• Table: We used the trestle table for the first time. Having the extra table top space was really useful.
• Mattress: I picked up a Campmaster inflatable mattress (with a pump) on special at Game for under R150. Not recommended as the thing tends to flip you off when you roll over, if not fully inflated.
• Roofi: The Roofi Car Rooftop Storage Bag is worth its weight in gold for packing awkwardly shaped objects like tables and chairs.
• Caravan Plug: Used a caravan plug adaptor for the first time with an extension cable while running the fridge and charging the Jackery.
• Step: A fold up step to help Pat access the fridge. Works well when packing the Roofi as well. An excellent buy, but I don't think it can take much more than my weight.

(updated: 24 April 2023)

Campgrounds