Travel Butlers African Safari Blog.

THE Riverdene Lodge in the Shamwari Game Reserve has been newly renovated to accommodate adults and children, and now has a children’s programme for families. 

The newly renovated accommodation at Riverdene Lodge features 2 supervised playrooms for children’s activities and supervised lawns with a jungle gym; a sports and social programme which incorporates soccer, cricket, treasure hunts and swimming. A special children’s menu is available, and child minders are available at all times.

Upon arrival, each child will automatically receive a Born Free Foundation certificate and a fluffy toy. Daily game drives for children and their parents will be organised with trips to the Born Free Centres and the Shamwari Film Studio. 

Children will be introduced to the Shamwari Game Reserve and Born Free Foundation’s challenge to promote the conservation of species and the protection of habitats whilst maintaining a compassionate approach to the welfare of animals.     

At the Shamwari Film Studio, children will be shown where the popular international Unearthed 2 series was filmed, produced and edited. Children will also be exposed to the filming of the new wildlife series entitled Shamwari: A Wild Life, which will be launched in September 2008.

Lastly, children staying at the Riverdene Lodge will be invited to take part in the special education programme at the Shamwari Animal Hospital and Rehabilitation Centre.

Following on from last weeks listing of top lodges for families in malaria free areas, today we are having a look at our most popular lodges for families in the Greater Kruger area.

The first point to bear in mind when looking at family lodges in the Kruger area is that the average age of children staying at lodges in this area tends to be higher than for lodges in malaria free areas.  There are two reasons for this: firstly, many parents are reluctant to take younger children to a low risk malaria area,  and secondly many of the lodges will have a minimum age of  8 or so and do not tend to run the sort of children’s progams that are offered by many lodges in the Eastern Cape and Madikwe.

The Greater Kruger area is South Africa’s leading safari destination, and for those parents travelling with slightly older children and who are happy to visit an area where it is necessary to take anti-malaria precautions, these lodges all offer an excellent safari experience. The full listing is: 

1 ) Notten’s Bush Camp
2 ) Chitwa Chitwa Game Lodge
3 ) Inyati Private Game Reserve
4 ) Exeter Dulini Private Game Lodge
5 ) Jock Safari Lodge
6 ) Bongani Mountain Camp
7 ) MalaMala Main Camp
8 ) Savanna Private Game Reserve
9 ) Jackalberry Lodge
10 ) Elephant Plains Game Lodge

This listing is ranked on the number of nights children under 12 have spent at each lodge based on recent bookings made by Travel Butlers.

With the school half-term holidays only a few weeks away, and Easter following on shortly afterwards, we thought this would be a good time to look at the most popular safari lodges for families visiting South Africa’s malaria-free regions.

A quick glance at the listing below show that the game reserves in the Eastern Cape (Kariega, Kwandwe, Lalibela, Shamwari, and Amakhala) are particularly popular with families, and safari lodges in this area take the first 7 spots. This highlights the great appeal of South Africa’s most popular family holiday route  which is a few days in Cape Town, followed by some time exploring the Garden Route Coastline and a safari in one of these malaria free reserves.

The remainder of the top 10 is made up with lodges in the Madikwe reserve up in the far north of the country on the border with South Africa, and somewhat surprisingly no lodges from The Waterberg area feature at all despite it’s convenient location just a couple of hours outside Johannesburg.

The Kruger area and KwaZulu-Natal are both considered low-risk malaria areas and are therefore excluded from this listing.

The full listing is:

1 ) Kariega Lodge
2 ) Kwandwe Ecca Lodge
3 ) Mark’s Camp
4 ) Long Lee Manor
5 ) Woodbury Lodge
6 ) Amakhala Safari Lodge
7 ) Leeuwenbosch
8 ) Little Madikwe
9 ) Jaci’s Tree Lodge
10 ) Madikwe River Lodge

This listing is ranked on the number of nights children under 12 have spent at each lodge based on recent bookings made by Travel Butlers.