Off to Madikwe Game Reserve

Said to be the fourth largest game reserve in South Africa, the ever-increasingly pop­u­lar Madikwe Game Reserve is also the country's best kept secret. Despite this, the name is increas­ingly on people's lips — per­haps because of its close prox­im­ity to Johannesburg (it is but a 3.5 hour easy drive on well-tarred road), or the fact that des­pite being prac­tic­ally on the Botswana bor­der its Big 5 game view­ing is in a malaria-free zone.

Whatever the reason, it was with 'oh, so you're off to Madikwe!' ringing in my ears that I hopped on a plane and headed off for Gauteng, the envy of my col­leagues. Despite a flight that was any­thing but effort­less, my hired car and I made it with a half hour to spare on the jour­ney to the North West and Impodimo Game Lodge ...

One can­not enter Madikwe as a day vis­itor, and accom­mod­a­tion in Madikwe comes in a range of lodges that vary in budget from the height of lux­ury to the Mosethla Bush Camp, which is one up from camp­ing, lacks elec­tri­city but does have hot water. My accom­mod­a­tion at Impodimo, on the other hand, was heavenly.

I've been for­tu­nate, as this was not my first stay in Madikwe. I was also here, some years ago, to assist on the set of a film at Tau Game Lodge, who were incred­ible hosts and, des­pite the stay being fraught with the usual film­ing polit­ics, was one of the most beau­ti­ful places I've ever stayed.

But back to this visit. Impodimo was slightly closer to Gauteng than Tau, and I was later to learn that one can actu­ally catch an air trans­fer from OR Tambo Airport to and from Madikwe, but the thought of get­ting on one of those tiny air­craft, given the recent air­link crash, was enough to leave me grate­ful for my air-conditioned hire number.

I arrived at Wonderboom Gate just as the sun was begin­ning to think about bid­ding adieu until the fol­low­ing day, already imbued with a new sense of calm as the sur­rounds had begun to expand into effort­less open grass­lands and bushveld plains, the odd rocky out­crop and hil­lock but a blip on an oth­er­wise flat land­scape. I was look­ing for­ward to the smells and sounds of the bush and at least a sight­ing of one of the big 5 if at all possible.

Madikwe sup­ports a rich amount of life, both mam­malian and veget­at­ive. Vast open plains and open wood­lands dom­in­ate, whilst the Rant van Tweedepoort cuts through the reserve and the Dwarsverg Mountains verge on the south­ern bor­ders. An his­tor­ical trans­lo­ca­tion exer­cise, called Operation Phoenix, saw the suc­cess­ful release of some 8 000 anim­als released into the reserve that included ele­phant, rhino, lion, buf­falo, gir­affe, spot­ted hyena and vari­ous ante­lope. Today there is an ongo­ing con­ser­va­tion policy through­out the reserve to main­tain the beauty of the reserve and the health of its animals.

And it isn't just the big game one can spot here. There are any num­ber of hip­pos, African wild cats, chee­tah, aard­wolf, bat-eared foxes, jack­als, hyenas and wild dog, never mind mon­goose, Cape claw­less otters, honey badger, striped pole­cat, warthog, aard­vark, zebra, scrub hares, pocu­pines and tree squir­rels. So starved for wild life you will not be, when stay­ing here.

I found myself, in no time, with a fancy cock­tail in my hand after being shown around the lodge. I had missed the after­noon game drive, but in a sense did not mind as I sat in the still that is twi­light in the bush, the air rent only with the inter­mit­ent cry of bird, a water­hole within my peri­pheral view, the odd buck flick­ing its ears in interest at the slight­est sound. Just then a herd of ele­phant effort­lessly came into view — incred­ible how grace­ful these huge creatures can be! I had struck gold just moments after arriv­ing! I might have missed out on a game drive, but who gets to sit, vir­tu­ally alone, and watch ele­phant at a water hole?

My accom­mod­a­tion did not fail me either. Impodimo is a series of glass fron­ted chalets vir­tu­ally carved into a hill­side. Each one of them looks out into nature with views as far as the eye can see, whilst the interior is lux­uri­ous and incred­ibly comfortable.

That night in bed, my sleep was woken by the roar of a lion that I dis­covered, the fol­low­ing morn­ing early on being woken for my game drive, was a young male thought to be one of the Sereti males — one of a coal­tion of three young males that are but three years old and dir­ect com­pet­i­tion for Ditaba and Sepedi, the cur­rent rulers of Madikwe, now that the Batia broth­ers, Ditaba and Sepedi's fath­ers, have died.

The game ranger was quite excited about get­ting on the drive so that we could catch up with the young lions. And I needed little encour­age­ment after hav­ing missed my game drive the night before. After a pip­ing hot cup of excep­tional cof­fee and snacks that, des­pite the time of the morn­ing, were deli­cious, we hopped into our open top vehicle and were off with little time to spare if we were to track down the lions.

Our know­ledge­able ranger enter­tained us to the his­tory of the lions of Madikwe whilst we drove. The Batia broth­ers, two phe­nom­enal 16-year old lions, had died late in 2008 after reign­ing supreme in Madikwe, des­pite the threat of the Tsholo Mateya males. The Batia's old­est sons, Ditaba and Sepedi, are now the rul­ing force, and man­age the east­ern half of the reserve. But new on the scene are the Sereti males who might only be three years old, but they're large and have not yet been in many ter­rit­orial dis­putes. There are over 70 lions in Madikwe, but these guys appar­ently are the ones to watch.

And watch we did. Within moments it seemed our landrover was hot on the trail of last night's lion, and we spot­ted him in the dis­tance not long after­wards. Unfortunately he was too far away to dis­tin­guish whether or not he belonged to any of the afore­men­tioned males, but for me it was excit­ing enough to say that I'd seen a lion at all, and quite frankly, I was a little relieved that he was a safe dis­tance from the vehicle.

My stay at Madikwe was over all too soon and I found myself back on a plane enter­ing the fray that was civil­isa­tion with more than a pang at how far removed we are from nature and the sheer force and beauty of life in the bush.

Useful Links:
Impodimo Game Lodge
Madikwe Game Reserve
South Africa Game Reserves