If you’re travelling in the Kruger National Park and passing Letaba Rest Camp, a visit to the iconic Letaba Elephant Hall is simply a must. Here several exhibits, including the real-life skulls and tusks of some of Kruger’s most well-known grey giants, will captivate your mind.
The Tuskers are the Kruger National Park's largest elephant bulls to wander the park between the 1930s and the 1980s. These include what became known as the 'Magnificent Seven' – Kzombo, Joao, Kambaku, Mafunyane, Nlulamithi, Shawu and Shingwedzi. Each of these elephants had tusks that weighed in at over 50 kilograms. Joao is said to have had the largest single tusk, weighing in at 70 kg, even if his tusks broke off as he got older and were never recovered. As a result, his are the only tusks that you won't see in the Elephant Hall. Shawu had the longest tusk at 3 metres 17 cm. If you consider that this weighs a healthy 52 kilograms it is not surprising to learn that it is also the sixth longest amongst all recorded African elephants. Kruger is proud of the fact that the genes of these incredible and great tusked elephants live on in the Kruger. Africa's great bull elephants have been hunted to such a degree that most of the great bulls' genes, outside of the protection of the Kruger, have been lost.
Letaba Rest Camp is in the north of the Kruger National Park, 50 km from the Phalaborwa gate and is open 7 days a week, 365 days of the year. Entrance to the Letaba Elephant Hall is free of charge, but daily conservation fees apply when entering the Kruger National Park; Wild members free.
The co-ordinates will take you to the entrance of the Elephant Hall.
How to log this find: You need to answer the following easy questions, all obtainable through observations while exploring what the Elephant Hall have to offer. Please submit your answers via the GeoCaching Message Centre or e-mail your answers to the CO via his profile link. Please do not post your answers in your log.
1. Find Mafunyane and take a photo of you or your GPS, measuring yourself against the size of its tusks.
2. Find Shingwedzi and describe any abnormalities about the tusks.
3. Find Kambaku. According to the information panel, in which area was he known to roam the most.
Uploading photos to the cache page and awarding the geocache with a Favourite Point, are the best ways to say thank you to the cache developer and to encourage others to visit the location.
Virtual Rewards 2.0 - 2019/2020
This Virtual Cache is part of a limited release of Virtuals created between June 4, 2019 and June 4, 2020. Only 4,000 cache owners were given the opportunity to hide a Virtual Cache. Learn more about Virtual Rewards 2.0 on the Geocaching Blog.
