Now that we’ve spent two nights in the Thornybush Reserve, it’s time to explore the nearby Timbavati Reserve. Timbavati shares opens borders with Thornybush as well as Kruger National Park, so animals can traverse massive areas and access different types of habitat. Our home in Timbavati is the Simbavati River Lodge, located in the northern sector. Here, there are fewer lodges – the area our game drives traverse is 12,000 hectares and will never have more than 25 vehicles on it at any given time. That means uncrowded game sightings and the feel that you are the only vehicle out in the bush.
Hyenas (Kassandra Magruder)
Simbavati River Lodge feels like family. It’s homey and laid-back, with plenty of amenities to keep you comfortable (fitness room, spa, A/C in tents) without being pretentious. River Lodge has a ton of wildlife on the premises: a great choice for those wanting an immersive experience. Within the first hour, we see a large herd of elephants crossing the river right in front of the lodge. We have ellies in camp, as well as an enormous giraffe outside our tent, warthogs, waterbuck and bushbuck. The river runs year round, so wildlife spottings from the lodge are abundant.
After a fresh and delightful lunch, we are off on our first afternoon game drive. Our guide/tracker team at River Lodge is Stefan and Nicholas. Stefan is quite the wildlife photographer and helps with my settings after hearing me bemoan my rather basic DSLR camera. We head to the river, where we find a herd of elephants right off the bat. A youngster is playing a game of cat-and-mouse with an egret, who is not amused. The egret shows zero interest, thereby winning the game. The baby elephant moves on to a smaller bird to play with. Next, we are off to visit a hyena den, which rewards us with two young hyenas basking in the late afternoon sun. They leave us to wander off, but not before giving us some lovely photographs. After our sundowners, we are rewarded with a sighting of an African Wild Cat, which is very elusive.
The morning game drive yields the first big cat spotting of the trip. We spend the morning with 4 lions from the River Pride. They are younger lions of mating age, which is obviously what the males have in mind, though the females are full from a large meal and not interested.
The trip was not only memorable for the amount of animals we saw but also for the people and accommodations at the two camps where we stayed. Our first guide, BK, was a wealth of information about the animals, landscape and down to the plants and what they were used for. Everyday out was a learning experience with him. All the people at the camps were gracious and the food was excellent.
Our second camp in the Okavanga was just as good as the first as far as the staff, accommodations, food and animals. After our experience at the first camp we amazed that the high quality remained the same. Our guide, G, made sure we were able to enjoy every experience including a rush through the bush to witness a cheetah and an ensuing hunt that he heard over his radio.
In both camps there were enough guides out that if they saw something the other guides were informed which helped in seeing as much as possible. It was also nice that the concessions were large enough that we did not have vehicles following each other throughout the day.
Normally there is always something in a trip of this length that we think could be improved upon but this is the rare case where we cannot think of anything. From the time we left the States to when we returned it was one of the most hassle free vacations we took.
Perhaps emphasizing the use of the laundry facilities at the camps would be useful because of the luggage restrictions would be the only thing I can think of as an improvement to future clients.
Kenneth Dropek
2 days ago
Mary was so pleasant and professional. She made sure all of our questions were answered.
