This past Friday a crash of Rhino’s hopped aboard the Rhino Tripping fleet for a 3 hour journey into the interior along Route 62, our final destination, Sanbona Wildlife Reserve. Sanbona is a 55 000 hectare private reserve in the Breede River Valley, between Barrydale and Montagu. At the end of this trip we would be asked for one word that would best describe Sanbona, although words such as; stunning, awesome and amazing popped up, the word unique was the most common. Because Sanbona is definitely unique, incredibly unique.
It begins with it’s position, geographicaly Sanbona is positioned within the Little Karoo in the Western Cape at the foot of the Warmwaterberg Mountains. Combine these two facts with it’s incredible size and you have the perfect recipe for stunning mountain vistas, wide open spaces and vegetation unlike anywhere else you have ever been. It continues with their approach to the wildlife experience, the word Sanbona comes from the San people and the word ‘bona’ means vision, the San people believe in living in harmony with nature and their vision has come to life at Sanbona. In such a unique setting the challenges faced by conservationists are also unique. In this environment even tried and tested practices from long established reserves like the Kruger National Park, donnot apply. So at Sanbona every step taken is towards learning what works and what doesn’t. For example discovering how much game the reserve can support without negatively impacting on the fragile and unique vegetation. It’s all rather complicated, but suffice to say that at Sanbona special emphasis is placed on balance in the environment.
All these facts are some of the things we learnt soon after our arrival and welcome drinks. Considering a welcome drink had already become drinks, plural, it’s a wonder that we Rhinos stayed enthralled throughout the presentation on Sanbona’s approach to conservation, testament to how interesting their approach is. We learnt about their numerous conservation projects, like their efforts to ensure the survival of the rare Riverine Rabbit, to track and document the Cape Mountain Leopard population of the reserve, to ensure the survival of the various endemic plants and animals of the area, the Greenleaf environmentally friendly status of the Sanbona lodges and the status of their ongoing and completely unique white lion project. Once all this information had sunk in, washed down with a few more glasses of local wine, we were treated to a lesson in Astronomy. At Sanbona, the night sky will blow you away. With very little artificial light anywhere near us, the sky was awash with stars, this despite the incredible full moon!
Our collective knowledge increased ten-fold we moved on to collective feeding with a boma dinner, which included grilled prawns and many more bottles of Western Cape wines. Although half of our group was staying at Dwyka Tented Lodge and the other half at Gondwana Lodge, we spent this first night together at Gondwana, where not only where we treated to an awesome dinner but also where lucky enough to see the resident owl “BooBoo” claim his own dinner, a small and unlucky snake. Later, some of the Rhinos treated the rest to a wine lubricated song and dance show and we debated the relative merits of Madonna vs Whitney Houston. Personally I’m more of a Led Zep man, each to their own.
Saturday morning dawned bright and clear and those of us at Gondwana Lodge awoke to a fantastic view out over Bellair Dam, the Karoo veld and a half dressed Samantha walking on the edge of the garden, you really can’t take these Rhino’s anywhere. Gondwana Lodge is a family orientated lodge, incorporating various facilities geared towards hosting families with children. For example there is a childrens room, jungle gym and an interpretive trail through the garden of Gondwana. Also many of the large rooms feature interleading doors, which are perfect for family use. After a sumptious breakfast we piled into two landrovers and headed out into the massive reserve.
Due to the nature of the environment the game at Sanbona is more widespread and generally large numbers are not seen. Although we may have been eager to see everything, what it really came down to was learning about all the little things. The rangers at Sanbona are well versed in all aspects of the reserve. Your guide will be able to interest you in the smallest plant and insect as well as the biggest elephant and the mightiest lion. Several hours later the entire group came together for coffee, biscuits and an interesting talk on the geology of Sanbona. We learnt all about the various types of rock that make up the environment and how they came to be there, how they effect the vegetative growth and how some of the animals have adapted to make full use of their properties. We also learnt about the rich fossil diversity at Sanbona. Our group had been split up into four seperate vehicles and the size of the reserve is such that we all had completely different experiences on our game drive. One group walked with a white rhino, another group walked with a cheetah and her two cubs, the mother had just made a kill, so fresh that the grass around was blood splattered!
The afternoon for many was spent watching the mighty springbok rugby team, play like rabbit and lose to the wallabies of Australia. The rest of the group indulged in massages and beauty treatments at the Gondwana retreat. Later we returned to the vehicles and drove then walked to a cave once inhabited by the San people. Our guide showed us the rock art contained within the cave and explained to us how they painted the intricate works with the basic tools and materials avialable to them.
Saturday evening was spent at Dwyka Lodge, where one half of our group was staying. Dwyka is built within a horseshoe bend on a dry river and is surrounded on all but one side by rocky cliffs. The tented accommodations are incredible, well decorated, spacious and luxurious. Each features indoor and outdoor showers as well as a private plunge pool. At Dwyka we were treated to a sit down meal, some impromptu stand-up comedy and many more bottles of wine!
The following morning we reluctantly left this unique property behind and returned to our beloved Cape Town. Our thanks go to our incredible hosts, we had an amazing time and will be back!
Have a closer look at Sanbona on our website:
Sanbona Wildlife Reserve
Sanbona Dwyka Tented Lodge
Sanbona Gondwana Lodge
