Val King, Lakeside
A big thank you to Table Mountain National Park for allowing free entry at pay-gate areas for five days. As a nature-loving 85-year-old, I loved every minute of being at Silvermine Dam, in which I swam every day for the full five days, come black south-easter or heavy wind.
While there, I met several other old-timers who have special lifetime entry cards, which were handed out a number of years ago when SANParks was in a more generous mood.
I now make a heartfelt plea to SANParks to reinstate that free card for, say, people in their 80s.
It will cost SANParks very little compared to the great goodwill they will be showing. In addition, they will be doing a very worthwhile service to the nation by helping people in their sunset years stay a lot healthier.
• SANParks spokesman Rey Thakhuli responds: SANParks is pleased with the positive review from your reader on SA National Parks Week.
As part of the plan to give access to broader communities, we launched SA National Parks Week in 2006 which has seen over 620 000 people coming through our gates during this this focus week.
We also put in place the Wildcard and My Greencard with reduced rates for our loyal customers.
Furthermore, we have dedicated programmes for schoolchildren to attend environmental education awareness programmes.
We are constantly looking at ways to benefit our loyal customers, and soon we will be introducing a loyalty programme which will bring lots of benefits to various groups including pensioners.
We appreciate the feedback.