Madikwe Safari Lodge: It's the suite life (with a wild side)

Madikwe Safari Lodge is the latest and most spectacular addition to the Collection's private hotels and game lodges. The spacious, 5-star property is made up of 20 luxury suites built into the wooded foothills which overlook the most game-intensive areas below.

The malaria-free Madikwe game reserve is located within easy access north-west of Johannesburg. It comprises a wide plain between low hills and riverine grazing pastures close to the Botswana border. The 78 000 hectare (190 000 acre) wildlife haven has maintained a low profile for the past two decades while building its stocks of animals from herds all over the African continent.

The Big Five

Its traditional Big Five attractions are now expanded to the Big Seven. Lion, leopard, elephant, black and white rhino and African buffalo are complemented by cheetah and wild dogs. Zebra, giraffe and ostriches are proliferating under the supervision of the provincial Parks Board. The antelope population includes impala, springbok, kudu, blue and red wildebeest, eland, nyala, bushbuck, gemsbok and waterbuck.

Most of the animals have grown accustomed to sharing their adopted territory with rangers driving 4x4 vehicles filled with visitors along Madikwe's narrow, graded dirt roads. Rarely threatened by hunters and poachers, even lions, hyenas, jackals and packs of wild dogs tolerate their kills being seen close at hand. Within this vast, ecological safety zone the selective restocking programme has introduced a new generation of conservation and eco-tourism. Madikwe lions and its disease-resistant strain of imported buffalo are now sold on to game parks across Africa.

More is a leading operator in bringing this remarkable advance in wildlife conservation to the family market. Its young, forward-planning management team sees the correlation of game-viewing and hands-on eco-tuition as the future of Africa's natural resources. Its redesigned Madikwe Safari Lodge is not only the cutting edge of safari chic but also perfectly located to reach the rich Marico river habitat, the open plains and the surrounding mountains and dams in a single three-hour game drive.

General manager Jeremy Clayton leads a staff of highly-trained professionals into the next level of Madikwe hospitality. At 31, his goal is to set the pace for deluxe family safaris in Southern Africa. He explains how More's co-founder and CEO Robert More researched this trend in depth in the U.S. and Europe before taking over the property.

"Rob renamed the three adjoining lodges which comprise Madikwe Safari Lodge before I got here late in 2011," he says. "Each name relates to our theme in the Tswana tongue. Lelapa, the main lodge, means 'Family'; Kopano means 'Small gathering'; and Dithaba means 'Mountain', since it offers wider vistas of the terrain from its higher elevation. That brand identity launched an extensive programme of refurbishment and staff training which has transformed Madikwe Safari Lodge to the latest, 5-star international standards."

It hasn't disturbed the wildlife, including 340 species of birds, for a moment. Elephants and antelopes still walk along their familiar trails between the suites at night to reach the water holes. Sunbirds and weavers swoop across Lelapa's breakfast terrace to splash in the fountains and even the ultra-shy lynx has turned the diners' heads towards the trees below.

The suites

The suites, strung out along a winding paved pathway, continue the linkage between the bushveld and its pampered guests. Each has its own wooden terrace and plunge pool overlooking the sweeping valley to the mountains beyond. Each has a king-size bed and spacious bathroom and dressing room area. The indoor shower is set in a high, conical cubicle shaped like the tall termite mounds that dot the Madikwe undergrowth. The one outdoors on the deck next to the pool is open to the sky. The water supply is piped to gravity tanks on the hill above the lodges to ensure a consistent flow.

At night firelight and candlelight is optional: a must for the honeymooners and couples in search of a romantic getaway. The suites are equipped for bushveld authenticity with an open fireplace or 5-star convenience with air conditioning.

The restaurant cuisine is based on elegant café dishes prepared from ingredients delivered daily from leading suppliers locally and in Johannesburg. Food and Beverage manager Sam Moralo's resume includes stints at a top-rated lodge in the Kruger Park and an exclusive country club in Jupiter, Florida. Born nearby 30 years ago Sam came back home from the U.S. to join the new Madikwe Safari Lodge staff. "This is the future of the career I've chosen," he says.

The information age meets full-service satellite TV in the communal entertainment lounge in the main Lelapa lodge. It's a popular venue for sports fans and for younger guests, when they can find time for toons between the packed schedule of daily activities laid on in the Eco House.

Getting them young

Jeremy Clayton explains how this popular feature's line-up of bush lore and eco-training was devised by two of the More directors, Robert More and his wife Britt, parents of young twins. "Many of the lodge staff are parents too, working as rangers, managers and service staff. We pride ourselves on giving personal attention to every guest. Family is a personal priority for all of us here."

So is conservation, a passion for today's younger generation. "The world's mindset is changing in regards to ecology and conservation," Clayton continues. "Our rangers are just as passionate as the kids and very well-informed. Every drive they take and every presentation in the Eco House is planned to feed both the eyes and the imagination of our guests. Africa is the repository of most of the world's big game and the more the visitors learn, the better they can appreciate being amongst it at close hand."

The Eco House contains a wealth of natural exhibits gathered from the Madikwe reserve in the form of skeletons, bones, horns, snake skins and botanical specimens. Every significant find in the reserve is brought here. A library of reference books frames glass cases containing live snakes, scorpions and a huge South American bird spider. It's reality eco-training for the digital generation.

Along one wall is a row of skulls, the favourite ice-breaker for rangers like Andre Nel and Andre Morgan when they meet each day's intake of wildlife fans. "Okay, let's see who can tell me which animals these are just from their teeth," says the ranger. "Lion! Leopard! Warthog! Cheetah!" choruses the class, showing that they spend as much time watching Animal Planet and the Discovery channel on TV as they do checking out Justin Bieber and Scooby Doo.

'Kids learn early'

"Kids learn early," says ranger Kenneth Nyathi, who was raised in the North-West province and was taught about its trees, leaves and herbs as a child. His grandfather was a nyanga, an expert in traditional medicines, and to this ranger Madikwe is more than a zoological reserve. It's a natural pharmacy and food reserve deserving as much attention as the big cats and rhinos.

In several wide bowls in the Eco House he is cultivating saplings of Black Monkey Thorn, Knobthorn, Brown Ivory and Wild Fig with as much care as a bonsai gardener. "These species are not native to this area so I will use these young trees to repopulate them," he says. "I will have to fence off the Brown Ivory plants to protect them from the elephants. They love the fruit."

Media icons like US First Lady Michelle Obama and pop music's Beyonce and Jay-Z have spent family time in Madikwe recently but the game rangers are the real celebrities here. The young visitors hang onto their every word on drives and bush walks.

Says Jeremy Clayton: "We go a lot further than merely giving the youngsters something to do while their parents are on game drives or having spa treatments in the privacy of their suites. We provide a full daily programme of bushcraft and wildlife instruction under ranger supervision which is very popular. The accent is on having fun. Making cookies with the chef or hosing the mud off the jeeps after game drives is also something different and always a ball."

Out of advertising, into Africa

Assistant head ranger Stephanie Kulak is a good example of the enthusiasm and commitment shared by the Madikwe Safari Lodge's small team of professional guides. She left her executive career in advertising in Munich at the age of 39 to enrol in a tough, year-long ranger course based in and around South Africa's Kruger Park. She graduated with top marks from a series of courses which included leading patrols by foot and 4X4; geology, botany, climatology, and extensive knowledge of animals, birds, insects and reptiles; rifle shooting and reaction training in jungle-lane tests.

"The training was rigorous and there were many drop-outs from the 12-month course," she says. "These disciplines are essential to properly looking after visitors in game reserves like Madikwe. Equally important though was the course on Ethical Guiding, which looks after the welfare of the wildlife. We learned how to work with animals in their natural habitat, how to approach them and how to give them their space so that they became at ease with human visitors."

Madikwe's protected location forms an exceptional habitat for species of game which are rarely seen living side-by-side, like springbok and impala. Its herds of buffalo have been raised resistant to tuberculosis and are now so in demand at game parks and zoos worldwide that 40 of them were auctioned recently for R40m (about $5m). The revenue is now being used to upgrade the roads inside the reserve.

Strict rules

These roads, and the network of radio communications between the rangers working for the 31 private and commercial lodges in the Madikwe area, are the key to a non-stop game tracking and surveillance operation. Incidents of poaching are kept to minimum across the unfenced 78 000-hectare tract of unspoiled bushveld. Fast and coordinated response to threats and emergencies are conducted under the auspices of the North-West Parks Board and the provincial authorities.

The rules governing game viewing are equally strict, to ensure the Madikwe experience remains unique amongst Africa's wildlife reserves. Only three vehicles at a time are allowed at a lion sighting, for example, while three more can wait nearby to take their place. In order to protect the terrain rangers can only go off-road to view lion and cheetah and wild dogs at the hunt or the kill.

"At many other large reserves where tourists are allowed to drive themselves you can have one lion and 20 vehicles around it," says Stephanie Kulak. "Such excess has disrupted the ecology to such an extent in other parts of Africa that the animals now avoid human contact. We take the opposite approach. Madikwe is a community geared to providing the best family game-viewing experience worldwide."

All images extracted from the Madikwe Safari Lodge website.

For more information go to www.morehotelsandlodges.com and www.madikwesafarilodge.co.za