Tourism Development Plan Khomani San Community - The African ...

TOURISM DEVELOPMENT PLAN - ‡KHOMANI SAN COMMUNITY
3. Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park
3.1 Overview
Location
The Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park (KTP) is a trans-boundary protected area spanning
3,800,000ha across northern South Africa and south-western Botswana, and is bordered to the
west by Namibia (refer to Map 4).
Access
Visitor entry to the KTP is currently possible via four public gates and one community gate, as
listed in Table 9 below and illustrated in Map 4.
Table 9: Park entry gates for KTP.
Name Location Entry from Type of gate
Twee Rivieren Southern most point of Park South Africa & Botswana Public
Mata Mata South Western corner Namibia Public
Kaa Northern most point of Park Botswana Public
Mabuasehube Eastern most point of Park Botswana Public
Community
gate
West of Twee Rivieren South Africa Private gate for the
‡Khomani San
Access into the KTP is either by road or air. The access possibilities are summarised in Table 10
below.
Table 10: Access in the KTP.
Access by 4x4 vehicles Access by 2x4 vehicles Access by aircraft
• From the east via
McCarthy’s Rest and
Mabuasehube
• From the north via
Kang and Kaa
• From the south via the
R360 tarred road
• From Namibia via the
surfaced C15 gravel
road
• Via registered airstrip
at Twee Rivieren
Internal roads within the KTP comprise two main routes along the Nossob and Auob Rivers that
are gravel-surfaced and accessible to all vehicle types (including sedans). There are also two
linkage tracks between the main routes, one in the south, and another mid-way between Twee
Rivieren and Mata Mata / Unions End. Other roads and tracks inside the Park, away from the
main arterial routes, are sandy tracks and thus require 4x4 vehicles for year-round access.
As explained earlier, the KTP is the main attraction for tourists visiting the planning domain. Table
11 and Table 12 indicate that the vast majority of visitors to the Park are South African nationals.
Furthermore, according to research by the North-West University (Saayman et al, 2008), the
majority of visitors are middle-aged people from Gauteng or Western Cape Provinces who speak
Afrikaans as a home language, and are self-drive tourists using their own vehicles.
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