When you get into hot water in the Mabenyane concession area, your nearest help is in the Mabuasehube Game Reserve. Two readers, Danie Pienaar and Pine Pienaar, visited the area separately earlier this year. Here is their advice if you’re also planning a trip there.

The Mabuasehube Game Reserve – or Mabua, as it is commonly known – is that small square at the eastern end of the Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park in Botswana.

The reserve might just as well have been called the “Mabuasehube lion park”, because this area of 3 900 km² is dinkum lion country. Apart from having an excellent chance of seeing Kalahari lions, the odds of you getting to know some at close quarters are even better.

Apart from a leopard that dropped in at Pine’s campsite one evening and strolled around casually, a lioness visited them a few nights later.

Pine says the lioness first walked around the shower cubicle to see whether there was water at the washbasins, and then walked through the campsite’s
A-frame shelter and drank their dishwashing water from the collapsible basin!

Afterwards she lay down about 3 m from their fellow campers’ trailer and tent.

Some people in Pine’s group decided it was safer to rather sleep in their vehicle, and no one walked to the toilet that night ... 

Why (apart from the lions) should I go? 

• “The great thing about a visit to Mabua is that there usually are few visitors. You seldom encounter other vehicles and when you find lions it usually is only the lions and you.” – Danie

•  “It’s remote, and your group are frequently the only ones who are experiencing something wonderful, such as a leopard feeding. You can therefore take everything in at your leisure and take enough photographs without a traffic jam.” – Pine

What is the best time to go?

• “Visiting Mabua is nice all year round, but in the dry season (May-November) it is easier to see animals moving to the pans.” – Danie
   
• “Our first rainy-season visit to Mabua was in March this year. It was the first time we saw water in the pans. The grass was vivid green and mostly so high it was difficult to see animals.” – Danie