Blazing A Trail

New bush lodge places a premium on quietness and solitude

- Bruce Dennill

The new Klaserie Sands River Trails camp is a considerable distance from the established Klaserie Sands River Camp, which is itself a considerable distance from the entrance to the Klaserie Private Nature Reserve, adjacent to the Kruger National Park – a remote retreat for the rat race refugee. Part of the drive to the camp is cresting the highest point in the area (you can tell, there’s a trigonometrical beacon next to the road), which means you’re suddenly presented with a new vista – of old, uninhabited Africa; different terrain that requires you to interact with it differently, which is a thrilling idea. The roads are less defined here, and that won’t change quickly, as traffic will remain minimal, with River Trails being set up to be as vehicle-free as possible. The vision is to host guests – one group at a time – for short periods with no overlap between arrivals and departures, so there are no incoming or outgoing transfers or supply trucks to spoil the isolation and peace.

This is not a strategy that screams of greed and profit grabbing, but co-owner Louis Rautenbach doesn’t share the same risk-averse perspective as many of his industry colleagues, being a philosopher as much as a tourism professional.

“We want to introduce, or increase, a feeling of vulnerability for guests visiting us here,” he says. “Not in the sense of being exposed to danger in any way, but in that their experience here is about authenticity, honesty and gentleness in terms of how we interact with the environment and the animals here. And in many ways, having guests to whom these values are not important here is not our priority.”

Brave words, certainly in commercial terms. But inspiring ones, too – backed up by the sort of encounters that happen around the camp.