Stories Of The Kruger | Biyamiti Bushveld Camp

Biyamiti Camp, The Best Bush Camp In The Kruger National Park?

Biyamiti Camp: At the time of writing this, Aimee and I have been to Biyamiti twice. It is my second favourite camp in the Kruger National Park (After Punda Maria), and is Aimee’s favourite. The Biyamiti Bushveld Camp, as it is properly referred to, is one of many bushveld camps in the Kruger. The camp is so special to us because of how secluded it is. A bushveld camp is basically a small rest camp with no shops, restaurants or petrol stations. They are small camps and only accommodate a small number of people. Generally the people who stay at these bushveld camps are there for the same reason you are; to experience nature and to definitely not make a noise and throw parties. There are 15 units in the Biyamiti rest camp.

There are roughly 20 odd kilometers of private road from the camp. This road, so I have heard, offers all sorts of sought after animals. I have heard more than one story of people seeing Lion, Leopard, Cheetah, Wild Dog, Elephant and Buffalo in one drive on this road. We have never been so lucky, but we have had the most amazing Elephant sightings.

On our last trip, within 12 kilometers or so, we saw either a bull or a breeding herd of Elephants every kilometer. It was crazy. And because the bulls always seem to be in musth, we got charged a few times so we were very careful.

When we have been to Biyamiti, unfortunately, the Mbiyamiti River has not had much or any water in it. The camp is beautiful, surrounded by many species of trees such as Jackalberry and Wild Fig tree’s. This makes birding superb. There is a huge variety of bird species in the Biyamiti Bushveld Camp.

Some of the birds we have seen during our 2 stays:

Orangebreasted Bush Shrike
Redbilled Hornbill
Yellowbilled Hornbill
Woodland Kingfisher
Eastern Blackheaded Oriole
Natal Francolin
Arrowmarked Babbler
Redchested Cuckoo
Lesser Striped Swallow
Jacobin Cuckoo
Laughing Dove
Cape Turtle Dove
Emerald Spotted Wood Dove
Forktailed Drongo
Green Woodhoopoe
Great Egret
Blacksmith Lapwing

Biyamiti is full of life and I have had 2 interesting encounters, and Aimee has had 1.

Our Biyamiti Encounters

The first one is quite funny, well, not at the time. We were unpacking, and even though we are always careful, it happened anyway. A Vervet Monkey came into our kitchen area and grabbed a bowl of sugar. I was furious and started shouting at the Monkey while watching him eat the sugar and eventually drop the bowl and lid.

Aimee’s encounter was amazing, especially for her because it involved her favourite animal, the Elephant. A very friendly bull was browsing a tree in the camp outside the fenced off area. She managed to get really close to him, we both did. He was not fazed at all!

There is a nice walk around the camp that takes about 20 minutes or so… When I first did it, there were some amazing red beetles and big ants all along the trail. I managed to see a female Bushbuck and her young one. They were calm and did not care that I watched and photographed them. I then ran into a Duiker and a Scrub Hare. The camp is full of life!

All of a sudden the birds stopped chirping as I was walking through the thicket in the camp. I heard some rustling and looked up. There was a cat in the tree, it was fairly large and it could have been a young Leopard or a Caracal (Caracal rarely climb trees though). I then backed of slowly, not being able to see spots or black pointy ears. It remains a mystery.