South Africa

Klaserie Game Reserve

Nyati Safari

Nyati Safari is a Danish-owned company running a safari lodge in the 10,000-hectare Maseke Game Reserve, a Big Five reserve in the heart of the Greater Kruger National Park.

As a guest you can stay in tents or chalets along the Oliphant river. Without even leaving the property, you are more or less guaranteed to see elephants along the shore, hippos in the pools and the beautiful kingfishers in the trees.

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And speaking about wildlife experiences you can have without leaving the property - there is a driving range and a gym close to the entrance gate. From time to time, the driving range is packed with all kinds of animals, so you have better be carefui not to aggravate any potentially dangerous ones while doing your daily excercise.

The main attraction at Nyati Safari though, are the game drives in the morning and the afternoon. A number of rangers alternate driving guests around the reserve, searching for wild animals. Some species will just refuse to move away and try to chase you away instead, while others are extremely elusive.

This particular elephant just would not back down until guide Daniel did the special sign.

Already on the first game drive, we were fortunate enough to complete 4 out of the big 5. Obviously we had already seen plenty of elephants, and also a couple of rhinos. And within just a couple of hours we managed to locate a pride of lions and a herd of water buffalos as well.

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Some of the most picturesque animals were the birds though, and in particular the vultures and birds of prey.

I believe we spent almost 40 hours going on game drives. Leopards are notoriously difficult to spot. Not all of the visitors got to see any of them during the week. We were lucky though - on two separate occasions we were in the actual jeep that spotted one.

The first time, our guide for the day, Peter, noticed one slipping away through the undergrowth after some impalas gave warning calls. After a quick maneuver through some haphardous terrain, we found a good spot where we could wait for it to cross the road just in front of us.

The second time was pure luck.

We were on our way to an early bushwalk session with no intention at all to search for game until we reached our walking area. Then all of a sudden, a behemoth of a leopard - almost the size of an adult lioness, was laying just by the road.

We stayed there for a good while until it got tired of us and slowly walked away.