Gaborone Game Reserve

Although small, at just under 600 hectares, the Gaborone Game Reserve is now the third busiest reserve in the whole of Botswana, providing a very popular venue for bustle-weary city residents to unwind in.

Established in 1988, the park has a good network of game viewing roads, a visitors education center, a couple of picnic sites, a game hide and a remote bird hide overlooking a reeded expanse of wetland. A detailed route map is supplied at the entrance gate, a short distance off Limpopo Drive on the western side of the city.

A section of the reserve has been enclosed to protect the park's couple of rhino, which can be viewed along certain roads, in addition to which visitors can expect to see impala, kudu, ostriches, wildebeest, zebra, gemsbok, bushbuck, springbok, duiker and Africa's largest antelope, the eland.

As with much of Botswana, the Gaborone Game Reserve is very popular with bird watchers. The wide variety of habitats that the park covers from thorn scrub and woodland to riverine forest and marshland has lead to a wide variety of birds being commonly seen there, including raptors like the snake eagle, the unbelievably bright and prolific crimson boubou and the luminescent purple gallinule which inhabits the wetlands.

There are two well-maintained picnic sites and a game hide.