A holiday in the crater of a once active volcano ... Pilanesberg Reserve

When a friend of mine sug­ges­ted that our next hol­i­day in South Africa should be in the crater of a once act­ive vol­cano, I wasn't sure it was a good idea. I've seen way too many dis­aster movies to not know that people say “it’s been inact­ive for mil­len­nia” about fif­teen minutes before the thing erupts and the main char­ac­ters spend the rest of the movie fight­ing for their lives.

Turns out the main char­ac­ters in this adven­ture (a group of friends and myself) spent our time explor­ing and relax­ing for our lives. The long extinct vol­cano crater in ques­tion is now home to the Pilanesberg Game reserve and was well worth the vis­ions of disaster ...

The Pilanesberg Game Reserve is situ­ated in South Africa's North West Province and is one of the largest game parks in South Africa. With 50 000 hec­tares of unspoiled flora and fauna, the Pilanesberg Game Reserve offers a viable altern­at­ive to the other large game parks in the country.

With robust pop­u­la­tions of buf­falo, ele­phant, leo­pard, white rhino and lion, you can be sure that you'll get your fill of game view­ing dur­ing your stay. We had some truly remark­able close encoun­ters of the wild kind and man­aged to see everything that was on our view­ing list.

The Mankwe Dam offers an excel­lent oppor­tun­ity to view game, but it can be over­pop­u­lated with tour­ists who seem more inter­ested in eat­ing and chat­ting than actu­ally see­ing any of the nat­ural beauty. It's best to pick a hide, the name for the view­ing posts situ­ated around the dam, and take your time to appre­ci­ate some of the often missed beauty that the dam has to offer.

We did exactly that and were rewar­ded by great views of gir­affe, zebra and ante­lope. One of the more inter­est­ing anim­als that we hadn't expec­ted to see (every­body tends just to think about the Big 5 when they go game watch­ing) was the brown hyena, shaggy dog-like creatures that are strangely cute in an ugly-with-jaws-that-can-break-bone kinda way.

In addi­tion to game view­ing there are plen­ti­ful hik­ing trails and excel­lent bird view­ing, although I must admit we didn't get around to watch­ing many creatures of the feathered vari­ety. What we did do, how­ever, was do some star­gaz­ing – the African sky offers some incred­ible stel­lar eye-candy and we were lucky enough to have a mem­ber of our group who knew the pos­i­tions and names of the stars intim­ately. If you have the inclin­a­tion, buy a star map of the Southern Hemisphere and see which con­stel­la­tions you can pick out.

Accommodation in the Pilanesberg is plen­ti­ful, with a huge selec­tion of lodges and resorts cater­ing to every pos­sible wal­let. We stayed in Bosele Camp, one of the more rus­tic options, but were entirely sat­is­fied with the accom­mod­a­tion and ser­vice. There are sev­eral ultra lux­uri­ous options on offer, so even if you want to rough it dur­ing the day and lux­uri­ate at night, that can be accommodated.

All in all we got away without any vol­canic erup­tions but with lots of pho­tos and great memor­ies of this beau­ti­ful piece of Africa.

Useful Pilanesberg Links:
Pilanesberg National Park
North West Province Game Reserves
Pilanesberg Accommodation
North West Province Accommodation