Pongola Game Reserve is home to four of the ‘big five’ species and is a consolidation of privately owned land totalling 30 000ha including Lake Jozini.
White Elephant Safari Lodge is a 5-star tented camp overlooked by the majestic Lebombo Mountains. This is a place of magic and soul, inspired by a dream and created with passion. Classic colonial décor, sophisticated simplicity, deep verandas and sweeping views capture the history and romance of a bygone era. Eight luxurious tents – each with an indulgent bathroom and outdoor shower, personal bar and tea/coffee facilities – provide a secluded retreat in the beautiful savannah wilderness teaming with game and birdlife.
Delicious meals, elegant dining and dedicated service epitomise the White Elephant Safari Lodge experience, ensuring a rich tapestry of African memories. Meals are served at the main lodge (a restored colonial homestead) on wide verandas, in the dining room or on the deck alongside the swimming pool.
White Elephant Bush Camp offers a tranquil retreat form those seeking an authentic bush experience. Set in a shady thicket of knobthorn trees, Bush Camp is a special destination of one with nature and the landscape. Spacious thatched chalets (that range from Honeymoon suite to family units), with spectacular views of the Lebombo Mountains and Lake Jozini, are decorated in stylish simplicity. Traditional bush comforts, uncomplicated dining beside an open fire, moonlight night skies and flickering shadows add to the serenity and harmony with nature. The genuine warmth and friendliness of the staff and the simple abundance found at Bush Camp redefines true pleasures.
Activities available at White Elephant Safari Lodge include game drives, guided walks, boat cruises, ‘elephanting’ (see the Space for Elephants entry on this route), horse-riding, fishing, rhino walks, night drives, canoeing, mountain biking and many others.
White Elephant is the culmination of the vision of its owners, the Kohrs, and is a true celebration from the soul.
The White Elephant story:
God wrested the beautiful Lebombo Mountains from the steamy Maputaland plains and here nature ruled with a harsh hand for hundreds of years. But the vast herds of game lured determined men, hunters and explorers. So began the advance of white man in the early 19th century. Hunters made considerable fortunes. One such hunter, ‘Elephant White’ shot 15 elephant in one season. In the plenitude that was Africa, everything seemed inexhaustible…
The abundant game began to dwindle. In 1874, President Kruger proclaimed the Pongola Game Reserve, the first reserve in Africa. But, the Anglo Boer War in 1899 brought chaos and the new game reserve was abandoned. For years thereafter, lack of funds, muddle of boundaries and political agendas caused the game reserve to be a ‘white elephant’.
After the first world war, man toiled on the steamy plains, planting fields, building houses and railway lines but nature ruled ruthlessly with droughts and disease. Man fought a bitter struggle for almost three years against sleeping sickness and the tsetse fly. For a long time angry gunfire echoed across the plains. “Kill the game!” men cried,for they believed they had to destroy the animals to rid the land of the tsetse fly. Hundreds of thousands of animals thudded to the ground. By 1940 the game was gone but the tsetse fly remained: Another ‘white elephant’ in this history of man. In 1948 man finally won the tsetse fly war, with the notorious DDT insecticide. Cattle now flourished and sugar cane crept further along the course of the Pongola River…
The construction of the gigantic Jozini Dam began in 1970. But it was a flawed dam that caused considerable controversy and it, too, became known as a ‘white elephant’. Finally, in 1993 the wheel had turned full circle. Fences were dropped and game re-introductions began. Two elephant herds were re-located to our this ‘new‘ reserve. One of these elephants is an albino, not entirely white but a symbolic reminder of the past ‘white elephants’. After 100 years, the Lebombo reverberated again with triumphant sounds of nature!
In 1999, shrouded in the mist of early morning, a large elephant bull pushed over the mighty Mphafa tree in the Lodge’s garden. It was this tree that had given the lodge its name.It seemed fitting that the newly – restored lodge be renamed ‘White Elephant’.
A century has passed since the first proclamation of the Pongola Game Reserve, one hundred years in which man has struggled against nature. We cannot undo what has been done.We cannot rewrite history; we can only shape our future from past lessons. One-day vast herds will once again migrate freely across our plains at the foot of the Lebombo. Our struggle, too, will be difficult. But they are different from those that our forefathers fought. Our aim is to return this land to the wilderness, to Mother Nature.
