SAFARI STYLE - JOHANNESBURG, SOUTH AFRICA
Safari Style - Johannesburg, South Africa - Luxury Travel Magazine
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Safari Style | |||||
| By: Hilary Doling, Issue 34 – Autumn 2008 | |||||
| (Londolozi Private Game Reserve, Rattray's Mala Mala Game Reserve & Royal Malewane – Johannesburg, South Africa) | |||||
| THE HEADY MIX OF WILD AFRICA BY DAY, AND LUXURY CAMPS BY NIGHT, IS A POTENT COMBINATION. | |||||
| Londolozi | |||||
| The monkeys at Londolozi have luxury tastes. As I sit on my treetop balcony a vervet monkey takes her baby for a swim in my private plunge pool. I reach for my camera and she turns her velvet-black face ringed with silver fur towards me; ‘no paparazzi’ her expression seems to say. It is clear from the indifference with which she regards me that it is in fact HER private plunge pool, for I am merely passing through and she lives here. This unbeatable combination of luxury and wildlife is what Londolozi private game reserve is famous for. Created by the pioneering Varty family, Londolozi was the first safari camp to be accepted into the prestigious Relais & Chateaux fold and one of the first to take both wildlife conservation and integration with local communities seriously. Now its five stellar camps are back in family hands, under the stewardship of fourth generation Boyd and Bronwyn Varity. The newly refurbished Tree Camp has six suites with wide windows out onto bush views, open air decks nestling in the ebony trees and outdoor plunge pools. Marry all this closeness to nature with the Ralph Lauren wallpaper, chocolate leather sofas, cream furnishings and that ultimate indulgence, a freestanding stone bath looking out into the bush, and you have the perfect combination of style and simplicity. At night the bush decks are lit up with Out-Of-Africa style hurricane lamps. The newest and most exclusive addition are the three Granite Suites surrounded by riverine forest river and decorated in a pallet of colours all the best rhinos have been wearing for years; charcoal, grey and slate. Londolozi sits lightly on the banks of the Sand River in the heart of the Sabi Sand Reserve adjoining Kruger National Park in Mpumalana. There are no fences and animals move freely wherever they wish, so you see a great variety of game. The leopards of Londolozi are justly famous: twenty five years of observation has meant that generations of these elusive cats are more at ease with 4WDs, which means you get a chance to get close to some of Africa’s most private animals. On our first game drive we have spots before our eyes almost immediately when our tracker sees a leopard sitting basking on a rock, her eyes ginger in the sun. That same day we also see lions on the prowl, delicate impala aplenty and are even mock-charged by a rhino that thinks we’re a little too interested in his family group. At day’s end I wander down to the restaurant deck where the monkey and her baby and several of her relations are now hovering in the trees. As the elephant-grey dusk descends we sit sipping champagne and listening to the sounds of the African night. | |||||
| Mala Mala | |||||
| Those who prefer a more traditional African experience should head to Rattray’s On Mala Mala next door to Londolozi. At Rattray’s elephant tusks on the wall, zebra skin ottomans and the rich dark furniture recall the old days of the great game hunters intent on bagging the Big Five (elephant, lion, leopard, rhino and buffalo). These days’ visitors to Rattray’s bag their trophies with cameras not guns and at Mala Mala they boast that their mammoth 19,000 hectares of varied terrain ensures impressive viewing statistics. We’re not disappointed; we see a leopard which our sharp-eyed tracker identifies by a mere hint of tail in a tree, a pride of lions with cubs that frolic all over their mother stepping on her face until she roars in irritation, and hippos wallowing in the waterhole. Rattray’s eight grand villas have wooden shutters, imposing columned verandahs and classic canopied beds. The Rattray family has owned Mala Mala since 1964 and when Nora Rattray visits, the traditional pith helmet she likes to wear is absolutely in keeping with the camp’s sense of history and the framed sepia photographs that decorate the bar. There is however a 21st century side to the property; each suite has wireless, laptops and a plasma TV to ‘allow the business mandarin to stay in touch with their company’. | |||||
| Royal Malewane | |||||
| When I tell you that one of Elton John’s favourite places on earth is the Royal Suite at Royal Malewane you’ll have some idea of the opulence you will encounter if you stay here. He and partner David Furness have been yearly visitors. Furness wrote “bliss, bliss, bliss” in the suite’s visitor’s book after his last visit and I’m inclined to agree. I wonder as I idly flip through the exalted names running through its pages if Elton will ever stop on my name and exclaim in delight at the prospect of having shared an experience with me? And what an experience. They don’t do things by halves at Royal Malewane: think exotic Persian carpets, antiques, Chinese vases, wide wooden verandahs, four poster beds draped in snowy white and claw-footed baths in bathrooms as big as most Sydneysiders’ whole apartment, and (in the case of the two top suites) shower recesses large enough to park a safari jeep in. For all this elegant excess you still feel part of the surrounding bushveld. Decks are open and shaded by Acacia trees and the main restaurant is built over a busy waterhole, although the elephants have been known to reject it in favour of the fluid they can suck out of the Royal Suite’s swimming pool. Royal Malewane, situated in the Thornybush Reserve in the Lompopo Province, is also home to one of the most extravagant spas in Africa so at the end of a day bouncing around in the back of a 4WD you can ease those dusty, dirt road-weary limbs with a massage in the kind of spa you expect to find at an exclusive beach resort, not in the middle of the bush. There is something surreal about relaxing on an open-air massage bed with the roar of lions in the distance. The guides at Royal Malewane aim to please. We all know that going on safari is not about seeing particular animals, it is about letting the game drive unfold, nevertheless it is a mark of a good guide and tracker is when they try and accommodate their clients desires. So once we bemoan the fact that we haven’t yet seen any elephants close-up they bush bash into the scrub and bring us face to face with an impressively large bull elephant. Then, knowing cheetah have been spotted at the furthest reaches of the reserve we belt along sandy tracks to be rewarded by the site of two graceful slender animals padding through the bush. On the way back several giraffes sail across our path, swaying gently as if blown by a gentle breeze. The day we leave the Limpopo I am sitting on the deck minding my own business when a long wrinkled trunk curls over into the pool and sucks. What is it with animals and my private pools? I am not about to argue with a creature that weighs up to 6,500 kilos and is known to intimidate lions. Besides I know the answer to any protest, a monkey already set me straight. “I know, I know,” I say to the disinterested elephant, “it’s not my pool it’s yours, I’m only passing through. YOU live here”. | |||||
| Details: | |||||
| Londolozi Private Game Reserve | |||||
| Rattray's Mala Mala Game Reserve | |||||
| Royal Malewane | |||||
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