Bush, Beaches And Backdrops

The Eastern Cape has a range of tourism options to suit every taste

- Lesley Stones

Could anything be more thrilling than watching a lioness menacingly walk towards you, growling out a warning while her six cohorts loll alertly at the side of your vehicle?

Yes. Watching those seven lions when you’ve just realised you have a puncture, and you need to climb out of the Land Rover and stand around while the rangers change the tyre. Oh-oh.

A puncture amid a pride of lions isn’t ideal, but they’d brought down a wildebeest the day before and didn’t look hungry. Besides, the rangers at Kwandwe Game Reserve took it all in their stride. First, we reversed for a few hundred metres as the last of the air leaked from the tyre with a pathetic ‘ppfffff’. Another vehicle parked across the road in front of us for protection and the rangers quickly changed the tyre. We climbed back on board and drove past the still somnolent lions, joking with relief about what a tasty feast they’d missed.

Kwandwe straddles the Great Fish River in the Eastern Cape and became a Big Five reserve after patching together several old farms and reintroducing more than 7,000 wild animals, including black and white rhino, elephant, cheetah, Cape buffalo, hippo and leopard.

With only 26 bedrooms spread across five different lodges, Kwandwe boasts one of the highest land-toguest ratios in South Africa. My chalet in Fish River Lodge was gorgeous inside and hugely entertaining on the outside, with steps leading down to a private plunge pool by the river, so you can skinny-dip while the animals drink right in front of you. If you’re less of an exhibitionist, you can have spa treatments in the privacy of your room, while gourmands can look forward to meals like perfectly cooked quail, Norwegian salmon and chocolate mousse.