SA – Kalahari Meerkat Sanctuary

Kalahari Trails, better known as the Meerkat sanctuary, is home to one of the Kalahari’s best-known animals, suricates. Kalahari Trails Meerkat Sanctuary is 3500ha in size, nestled right in the heart of the red Kalahari dune fields, just 35km before the entrance to Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park (KTP). This unique piece of heaven offers visitor experiences where you can get closer to nature and possibly interact with the Meerkats like no other place in the Kalahari.

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Augrabies Falls

Augrabies Falls National Park is a national park located around the Augrabies Falls, about 120km west of Upington. It was established in 1966.The Augrabies Falls National Park covers an area of 820 km² and stretches along the Orange River. The area is very arid. The waterfall is about 60 metres high and is awe-inspiring when the river is in flood. The gorge below the falls averages about 240 m deep and runs for 18 kilometres. The gorge provides an impressive example of erosion into a granitic basement.The original Khoikhoi people named the waterfall Ankoerebis, meaning the "place of big noises". The Trekboers who later settled in the area derived the name Augrabies. There are many deposits of alluvial diamonds along the Orange River and legend has it that the biggest cache of diamonds in the world lies in the swirl-hole eroded into the granite at the foot of the waterfall by the thundering waters.On the menu of plant species is the enigmatic Quiver tree or Kokerboom (Aloe dichotoma). Traditionally, the Khoisan hunters made their quivers from this tree which dates back thousands of years and which produces vivd yellow flowers in May and June.The Augrabies Falls National Park offers an ancient landscape that will take you back in time to the world of the first hunter-gatherers.

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SA – Strandloper – Langebaan

To us, local is lekker. Local food, local staff, local taste – all on an a scale of international proportions. We welcome guests from far and wide. From Boksburg to Bangkok, from Cape Town to Cairo, we’re here to make sure you enjoy the ultimate in good, old-fashioned, down-to-earth, West Coast awesomeness. You’ll find us to be a tight-knit family who love what we do. Whether it’s building fires, turning grids, baking breads or simply making you feel right at home, we’re into fun, sun, surf and everything that goes with it.We’ve been meeting, greeting and bringing our guests memorable moments since ‘pa fell off the bus’ (which in South Africa is a great way of saying we’ve been doing what we do for a very, very long time). Some of our staff (like Marie) have devoted almost their entire working lives to us. All have been born and raised in the region. We treat them with love and respect because that’s just the way we are.

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SA – West Coast National Park

The West Coast National Park lies 88 km north of Cape Town in the Western Cape province of South Africa. The park is found inside of the Cape West Coast Biosphere Reserve, part of the UNESCO Man and the Biosphere Programme. The West Coast National Park is home to over 250 bird species, making it a bird-lover’s paradise. There are four hides inside the park, which provide excellent viewing. Flamingos, ostriches and black harriers can be seen hanging out in the area, along with curlew sandpipers, sanderlings and knots, which journey some 15000 km from Russia to breed at the park each year! best time to visit is in August / September for the magnificent display of fynbos.

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SA – Kruger National Park: Albasini Ruins

For the more historically minded traveller on a Kruger Park safari, entering at Phebeni Gate will be a good option, as a stone’s throw from the gate is the Albasini Ruins. The Albasini Ruins gives visitors the opportunity to have a look into the Park’s rich history. Albasini was a Portuguese trader in the area and the ruins are what are left of his 19th century trading post. Goods sold here varied from beads to clothes and even metal products. Although only a few crumbling walls remain there are small display rooms on site where you will be able to view the relics that were uncovered from the area.

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Kruger National Park: Shalati

The first view you get of Kruger Shalati is as you cross Crocodile Bridge in Kruger Park. You can just make out the train that almost disappears into the mighty steel and stone structure of the historic bridge across the river. Kruger Shalati is a hotel in a train on that bridge, one of those rare properties that will amaze you as much for its engineering and its history as for its service and hospitality. A feat of the imagination and of much calculation has resulted in a luxury boutique hotel suspended audaciously 50 feet above the Sabie River. This is safari – with a difference. What that means, for one, is that you can lie in your bath and tick off wildlife sightings most people can only dream of. The idea for the hotel was inspired by the location’s history – a disused railway bridge adjacent to what is now SANParks Skukuza camp in Kruger National Park, that was last in use in the 1970s. The line was originally built more than a century ago as part of a railway link to different gold sites in the Northern Transvaal. Tourism was soon added and in 1923 South African Railways introduced a nine-day tour through the Sabie Game Reserve, that included an overnight stop on the bridge (now in Skukuza) for wildlife viewing. The only way to view game in this area then was by train – this was long before roads were introduced and motor travel and rest camps became the modern way to experience the wild. The train experience was eventually discontinued because of the danger to wildlife. The hotel is essentially a train, made up of 12 carriages on the bridge, which were converted from 1950s relics recovered from a “railway graveyard” in Ladysmith. Rusted, burned out and vandalised the carriages were transported to Germiston on the East Rand in Joburg to be gutted, re-engineered and refurbished. It took 12 weeks to finish a single carriage and then each carriage – a 36-ton load – was transported over a four-day journey to the Kruger Park. One year to the day from the first carriage being placed on the bridge, the last carriage (built for universal access, with a specially designed lift for wheelchair mobility) arrived – in March 2021. Chef Andrew Atkinson heads up the kitchen, offering an exciting mix of cuisines with influences as diverse as Asia and the Middle East. The team here are brimful of enthusiasm and we found service to be utterly top-notch. Kruger Shalati excels at the welcome. We are excited to find out that the staff have been recruited from surrounding communities as part of land claims settlements, and that the hotel has offered opportunities to many who previously had no employment. A fantastic use of space and commitment to the community. A MUST STAY.

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