There’s nothing more profound for a city slicker lapping up a game retreat experience than hearing the cry of a wild animal in the dead of night.
With Samara Private Game Reserve’s 28 000ha of indigenous vegetation providing safe refuge to a diverse range of creatures, it’s easy to soak up a rewarding nature experience in this Eastern Cape reserve surrounded by everything from endangered species like cheetah, Cape shelduck and Cape mountain zebra to much, much more.
But for my guide Shakemore Manzinde, a Zimbabwean who’s made Samara his home for eight years, the reserve isn’t just a place to see a lot of animals.
“For me it’s also for people who like fresh air and views, and at night there are no lights – so for stargazing you can look out and identify certain constellations”.
As a South African spoilt by wide open spaces, it’s somewhat comical to hear of a tourist perched on Samara’s impressive Eagle Rock outlook point, which takes in the sweeping vistas of the Camdeboo (meaning ‘green valley’), who once asked Manzinde if the distant mountains were still South Africa.
He adds: “From my point of view, other places just don’t have the views.”
A three-hour drive from Port Elizabeth, the reserve is located 20km south-east of Graaff-Reinet. The area contains four of South Africa’s seven biomes on one piece of land: plateaux grasslands, Nama Karoo, savanna and valley bushveld thicket.
This translates to a variety of game drives potentially offering different sightings. I passed up a five-hour stint with lunch out on the Camdeboo plains, opting instead for a three-hour drive up the rocky mountainside, whose desolate grassland houses over 200 blesbok, 400 eland, Cape mountain zebra and 200 black wildebeest.
On our descent the rough, steep mountain road soon sliced through one of our sturdy Landy’s tyres, necessitating a remarkably quick tyre change. Passing by a 700-year-old Karoo shepherd tree, a favourite staple for browsers, a black-backed jackal loped past looking for cover from the hot midday sun.
The habitat is also rich in spekboom, Portulacaria Afra, which grows predominantly in the Eastern Cape. The reserve has launched a project to facilitate the regeneration of previously over-grazed land through the planting of spekboom, which is thought to reduce the amount of damaging carbon in the atmosphere.
“If a million hectares were planted it would have the same carbon reduction effect as the Amazon basin”, informs Manzinde.
The region once teemed with game before the arrival of the 19 century settlers. Lion, elephant, cheetah and buffalo occurred in huge abundance, allowing the Camdeboo plains to house one of the biggest migrations ever to occur on earth.
Millions of springbok and black wildebeest crossed in search of better grazing, leaving a trail of dust for days. But the erection of agricultural fences and the massacre of animals for sport saw centuries-old game paths disappear along with the extinction of the horse-like quagga.
Now, with the construction of solar-powered water holes and natural springs, numerous animals have once again made this habitat their home.
“I even came across an African wild cat which is quite a rare thing to see, as it’s hard to find a real African wild cat,” adds Manzinde.
Carnivores occurring in the locale include bat-eared fox, striped polecat, small-spotted genet, brown hyena, caracal and leopard. Mammals range from scrub hares to reddish-grey musk shrews.
Rodents include African porcupine and the Namaqua rock mouse. You can see even toed ungulates like klipspringer, steenbuck, kudu, giraffe, mountain reedbuck, waterbuck, red hartebeest, blesbuck, nyala and bushpig. To add to their stock, there are also plans to get eight elephants in April.
To maximise a relaxing visit to Samara to soak up the tranquillity of the Karoo, guests can stay at three different lodges: The Manor House, whose services include a personal ranger, chef and butler; the central Karoo Lodge homestead; or the remote Mountain Retreat which entails a bit of a bumpy extended ride to get there, but the awesome seclusion, solitude and sense of peace make it well worth the journey.
In addition to the obvious rewards of a game drive, with over 220 species of birds occurring on the property, bird watching is a cinch. There are breeding pairs of Black Eagles, and on game drives down south, you are likely to see Kori bustard, secretary birds and a host of other raptors.
Also make sure you take a walk to explore the valley landscapes where rock art paintings of cheetah are preserved. Fossils dating back 250 million years can also be seen on a 10-minute walk from Karoo Lodge.
And with two aardvark every hectare, guests can head out after dark for aardvark viewing, or take a dedicated aardvark safari.
For nature lovers who’d love to get their hands dirty in a unique bush experience, Samara also offers volunteer programmes. The venue is also home to the SACT Tracker Academy,.
l Call 049 891 0558, or e-mail reservations@samara.co.za For the Tracker Academy, call 049 892 2244. For more, see www.samara.co.za
The writer was a guest at Samara. - Cape Times