Terrible, but beautiful: A wildlife reserve’s rebirth

In the ultimate rebirth story, a former hunting reserve in South Africa’s Greater Kruger region has opened as a luxury lodge in a now thriving wilderness area for guests to explore on safari.

Set on the banks of the Timbavati River, Drakensberg Mountains in the distance, Sandringham Private Game Reserve is today unrecognisable from the scene that six years ago greeted Jacques Smit of the Sabi Sabi Collection accommodation group.

“We found the old abattoir on this so-called ‘closed’ hunting reserve, and there was a fresh giraffe carcass inside. And around the corner was a white lioness in a cage,” Smit says of the property that’s existed since the 1860s.

The animals were “skittish” at the sight of vehicles that in the past carried game hunters presenting a lethal threat over Sandringham’s almost 5000 hectares of low veld bushland.

“It was eroded, it was in a terrible state, but it was beautiful,” Smit says.

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There was extensive land and road rehabilitation and rewilding that included the daily presence of humans, no longer firing guns, in vehicles across the plains.

Animals now move freely between the unfenced corridors of Sandringham and the Greater Kruger area.

Sunrise and sunset safaris in open LandCruisers take guests where they might spot anything from a lion kill to mother and baby elephants drinking from a waterhole or an elusive painted dog; the only certainties are hot water bottles for the morning drives and sundowners in the bush.

The drives bookend a day of wildlife viewing in the supreme comfort of the lodge that overlooks the Timbavati filled with abundant bird life and frequented by hippos.

Wooden bridge skywalks connect the lodge to two camps comprising 12 suites and two villas: N’weti for a classic safari stay with (taut) canvas tent roof and infinity pool, and Shisaka (meaning “nest” in the Tsonga language) has rooftop salas (rooms) for elevated wildlife viewing across the water and space to sleep under the stars.

Finding true wild doesn’t always require an arduous journey. It’s not remote Africa, but nor is it Disney, Smit says.

The five-minute plane hop from the grass airstrip to Hoedspruit Airport connects to Johannesburg and Cape Town, or it’s 20 minutes to Sabi Sabi Collection’s four other properties in the Sabi Sabi Private Game Reserve.

The runway butler will be at the runway early to ensure the zebras are shooed away.

The writer stayed as a guest of Sabi Sabi Collection. See sabisabicollection.com

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Jane Reddy is the deputy editor of Traveller in The Age and The Sydney Morning HeraldConnect via X or email.AdvertisementAdvertisement