Travel - Willemsrus

Willemsrus (Dinokeng Game Reserve)

Introduction

Willemsrus [coordinates: -25.3687, 28.3864] is a campsite in the Dinokeng Game Reserve north of Pretoria about 65km from my home. Dinokeng is the only big five reserve in South Africa which falls within a city's boundary. As a result, the reserve is very popular, especially over weekends, when it can get quite crowded. During the week, it is very peaceful - on our first visit we saw hardly any vehicles within the reserve. Most of the restaurants within the reserve are only open on weekends.

A map book of the reserve is available at the gates, or at the reserve office in the Safari Mall. I will use some of these maps as pointers to things I am trying to show.

You will notice that the map is divided up into numbered rectangles. These rectangles are larger scale maps of the areas indicated. Willemsrus is on map 6, which I will refer to later.

In planning, the biggest problem that I had with this reserve is how the entrance and exit system works as there are several public access roads through it. Google searches were not very helpful in this matter neither, so the easiest thing that I could think of doing, was going to Willemsrus during the week to see for myself.

If you look at Fig 1, the entrance gates from the N1 are the Tau Gate on the Rust de Winter Rd and the Ndlovu Gate on the Boekenhoutskloof Rd. Coming from the Rust de Winter Dam, you have the Yingwe Gate, from the Moloto Rd, you have the Nyati Gate on the De Wagendrif Rd. The final gate is the Ts'ukulu Gate on the Boekenhoutskloof Rd. At each gate you are issued with a ticket (like that from an automated parking garage) when you enter the reserve and on leaving, you feed this ticket back into a machine. If you are in the area for less than a certain length of time, there is no transit fee. If you are in for longer, you have to pay conservation fees for being in the reserve. On our quick visit to look at Willemsrus, we were in the area for about an hour, but had to pay nothing.

The reserve's fee structure to drive in the reserve and to stay over (over and above the cost of camping, chalets, etc) is quite complex. After two visits, I am still not sure how it works. There are conservation fees for each member of the group and a charge for the vehicle. Then if you want to drive in the reserve, you have to pay for this as well. (Please be aware that none of the reserve's payment points have battery backup, so do plan your payments in times when load shedding allows.)

(updated: 14 March 2023)

Getting there

I found that Waze does a good job of getting you to Willemsrus, so I am sure that any other navigation software will as well, but for interest's sake, I will give a short description.

From the N1 take the Hammanskraal exit and turn E towards Rust de Winter. Take the first road left (N) towards Rust de Winter. You will pass through one of the extensions of the town of Hammanskraal on your way to the Tau Gate into the reserve. Collect your ticket from the machine (and do look after this ticket as you will need it to get out). At this point you can stop and pay the necessary fees for your stay in the reserve (do buy a map book as well as you will need it to navigate in the reserve).

From here, continue to the Safari Mall, where you can also pay your reserve fees. Just past the Safari Mall, turn right (SE) on to De Wagendrif Road, a gravel road. The corrugations on this road were absolutely atrocious on the occasions that I travelled on it, so do drive carefully. The turn off to Patrys Road is about 2km from the turn off. Willemsrus is at the end of Patrys Road.

The blue arrow on the map above shows the location of Willemsrus.

(updated: 15 March 2023)

Willemsrus

We had a major advantage after having done the quick visit to Willemrus before our stay over, the owners Hannes and Andre, allowed us to check the site so we could see condition of everything, including the ablutions. Everything, was spotlessly neat and tidy, even though it was midweek with very few campers on site. We booked and paid for our first visit while we were there, but everything can be done online. Hannes is very prompt in responding to emails.

I will share a few photos of what Willemsrus looks like.

The reception area is on the left, with the owners' residence on the right. The swimming pool in the foreground is fenced, to make it reasonably safe for kiddies.

There are two communal ablution blocks on the site. The ablution blocks contain the normal facilities, hand basins, showers and toilets (and urinals in the gents, of course). Everything was spotlessly clean. However, I did find it rather difficult to control the shower temperature. Each ablution block has washing up facilities on the outside of both the ladies and gents sections.

Each campsite has a tap, electrical point and a movable braai. Most of them have a reasonable amount of shade, but we thought campsites 8, 15 and 16 were the nicest. Campsites 15 and 16 overlook one of the waterholes (we stayed at both 15 and 16).

The waterholes are sunken concrete dams just outside the fence in the reserve. Unfortunately, these can be a breeding ground for mosquitoes, so do take repellent along. We did see a herd of more than 50 wildebees at one of the waterholes, but they moved off into the bush as soon as they saw us. During our first visit there was a very active and vocal group of jackals around the waterholes at night.

Here is a montage of some of the campsites in Willemsrus.

As you can see, there are plenty of trees in Willemsrus, so, as a result, there is plenty of shade at certain times of the day.

One of the nice things to see on our first camp, was a Burntnecked Eremomela. He seemed to have established his territory in the bushes on the east side of our campsite. It was really quite special to hear this bird calling during the time we were there.

I took this pic in Pilanesberg in 2006, but as it is rather difficult to get to see this bird, I include it here. On our second visit later in the year, it was still in the vicinity, but in the bushes to south of our original sighting at campsite 15.

Sound travels far in the bushveld at night. We could hear people from a completely different camp/resort talking well into the night. But this means you could also hear lions grunting in the distance, which is special.

The braai is cleaned every day, and one of the staff comes around every afternoon to check if you need ice or firewood.

One thing to be aware of is that the mobile data signal is very poor. MTN is virtually non-existent and Vodacom is very patchy, more often 3G than anything higher. This is quite nice if you are trying to escape from city life.

(updated: 17 March 2023)

The Reserve

Although Willemsrus is in the Dinokeng Reserve, if you look at Fig 2, you will see that there is no access to the self-drive routes within the reserve. You need to return to De Wagendrif Road and find an access road from somewhere else. All the other roads into the reserve have connections to the self-drive routes, but many of these roads have gates with access only given to guests at accommodation along those roads. What I did on our first visit was drive to Fisant Road (the first road SE of Patrys Road) and wait at the gate until someone opened it. Fortunately, this was not a long wait as a truck carrying workers into the reserve opened the gate and let us in. After spending some time driving around, I found that the easiest ways to get to the self-drive roads was from the Dula Nokeng Picnic Site (Fig 3) or the Wilderness Way Gate (Fig 4).

Dula Nokeng has the advantage that it is right next to the viewsite at the Fischer Dam. This is one of the few places to spot waterbirds in Dinokeng.

The advantage of the Wilderness Way Gate is that you can purchase your entrance permit here.

(updated: 18 March 2023)

Concluding Remarks

Willemsrus is definitely worth a visit, especially during the week, outside of school holidays. According to the owners, it is usually full over weekends. I liked the midweek peace and quiet as well as having a communal ablution block to myself.

(updated: 18 March 2023)

Equipment tested

• Tent: The Oztrail Bungalow 9 had its first outings with our two visits to Willemsrus. I really like the design of this tent, and having Cindy with us on our second visit made me realise that four people is the maximum number of bodies that you want sleeping in this tent.
• Mattresses: We bought two Thermal Comfort 7cm thick self-inflating mattresses from Camp and Climb. These work very well, but I found the 7cm to be a bit too thin as my hip did end up feeling the ground.
• Director's Chair: We used the director's chairs on both visits to Willemsrus. These are definitely not as comfortable as spider chairs if you are sitting for longish periods.

(updated: 24 April 2023)

Campgrounds