South Africa

Luxury Safaris & Tailormade Holidays throughout South Africa

Wildlife & Safari

Some of Africa’s most successful and best-loved game reserves are in South Africa

Kruger National Park
The oldest and best known is the Kruger National Park in the north-east of South Africa. This evolved from the Sabie Game Reserve, which had been established in 1898 to conserve the dwindling antelope population (mainly for sporting enjoyment!) but which became a national park in 1926. Kruger conserves populations of most of Africa’s wild animals and the only development permitted within the park is tourism-related. The facilities are good, access is easy and there is an extensive road network, much of it on tar.

Overseas visitors can copy the locals and enter the Kruger Park in their own (rented) vehicle. This doesn’t need to be a 4x4. You can stay in the large National Park restcamps, or you can fly or be transferred into one of the new smaller privately-owned safari lodges on private concessions within the Kruger. You then take game drives in search of elephant, giraffe, zebra and lion. Buffalo, warthog, impala, wildebeest and baboons will be easy to see. Near one of the 13 rivers you should see hippo and waterbuck. If you are staying at a private camp where your game drives are taken with experienced rangers you may be luckier and also see less commonly spotted animals such as cheetah, leopard, wild dog, rhino or honey badger and more...

Addo Elephant National Park
With its recent increase in size and biodiversity, the Addo Elephant National Park in the Eastern Cape has grown in stature from a much-loved haven for elephant to one of the busiest national parks in South Africa. It is now home to over 450 elephants, one of the densest populations in the world, as well as rhino, lion, buffalo, leopard, a variety of antelope species and is the only place that you find the unique flightless dung beetle. Like Kruger, there is a choice of both simple restacamps and independently owned private concessions or nearby country lodges, some of it very luxurious.

Addo is not the only park to have been originally gazetted primarily in the name of a single species. Also in the Cape are the Mountain Zebra National Park between Graaff Reinet Cradock and the Bontebok National Park near Swellendam. These are typically parks which you visit for the day, rather than being a safari destination in their own right.

Hluhluwe and Mkuze Game Reserves
In KwaZulu Natal are the famous Hluhluwe Imfolozi, Ithala and Mkuze Game Reserves, run by KZN Wildlife. These are magnificent parks and KZN Wildlife and its forerunners have been lauded for careful stewardship of KwaZulu Natal’s natural resources for more than a century. The action of the Natal Parks Board (as it was known) in Hluhluwe Imfolozi in the 1960s was responsible for saving the critically endangered white rhino with Operation Rhino. The white rhino population is now well-recovered and the park’s efforts are now focussed on saving the endangered black rhino, whose number in Africa has dwindled from 14 000 to a pitiful 2 550 in the past decade. This park is the greatest sanctuary for black and white rhino in the world. The only problem visitors, (and tour operators like us), encounter is that many of the old, well-known names have recently changed. So the World Heritage Site of Greater St Lucia is now the iSimangaliso Wetland Park and Hluhluwe-Umfolozi has become the equally tongue-twisting Hluhluwe Imfolozi.

Madikwe Game Reserve is one of the largest game reserves in Africa, far larger than some of the well-known East African National Parks. Besides its game-viewing, Madikwe is also known for being in a non-malaria area (alongside the Eastern Cape and the Waterberg).

Sabi Sand & Other Private Game Reserves
There are also the private game reserves, for which South Africa has become renowned. The Sabi Sand Game Reserve, which borders and shares open borders with the Kruger National Park, is well-recognised as one of the richest areas for wildlife numbers, especially for sightings of leopard. It is also the location of many famous game lodges such as Londolozi, Singita and Mala Mala. The Timbavati, Manyeleti and Thornybush Private Game Reserves are also adjacent to the Kruger National Park

In terms of size, the private Tswalu Kalahari Reserve, which covers 1000 square km (100 000 hectares) of land on the edge of the Kalahari or the 75 000 hectare

As South Africa has been husbanded and its land exploited for so many centuries, it’s a very different safari experience from game viewing in the classic East African safari destinations. None of the tracts of land set aside for wildlife conservation are pristine wilderness; all have been farmed at some stage, with varying degrees of success. Though these areas appear to be utterly wild at first glance, you can spot the odd cattle trough or part of an abandoned farm building. The goal in both national parks and private reserves is to return the land, so far as possible, to its original state. But there is little dissembling about their agricultural recent history; indeed, many of the old farmhouses make good cottages for visitors. Good examples of this practice include the pioneering Shamwari in the Eastern Cape and Phinda in KwaZulu Natal.

Few people consider that they are “going on safari” in South Africa, to the exclusion of all else. The more typical pattern is to incorporate a safari into a varied holiday, combining a few days in the bush with time in a city, on the beach or enjoying the scenery so have a look at some of the other pages we have on South Africa.