SURVIVAL OF THE FLUSHEST
Nadine Dreyer gets some bush tips she’ll never need at this über-luxe lodge
NEVER confuse the unusual with the impossible. That was Psmith’s motto and who would argue with this philosophy?
PG Wodehouse’s eccentric character might have remembered this distinction had he stayed at Singita Castleton Lodge in the Sabi Sand Game Reserve, as I did for two nights last spring. It was not impossible to tire of the luxury or the cuisine, but it would have been as unusual as a knob-billed duck correctly conjugating Latin verbs.
Look, you need to win the lottery to stay at this place — the British lottery. The lodge has a main house overlooking a waterhole with communal living spaces, and accommodation in six individual cottages, which is rented out in its entirety to a maximum of 12 guests, offering “exclusivity within exclusivity”. Add the fact that the lodge is set within 1 800ha of private reserve and you’ll correctly deduce that at Castleton there is no need to make small talk with anybody over the breakfast brioche except members of your own party. But despite its hefty price tag, the newly renovated lodge has a homey, farm-house feel. It was formerly the family home of Singita founder Luke Bailes’s grandfather (nice ancestry if you can get it) and has kept that comfortable, understated ambience.
Fortunately for the species, the male rhino does not have to pay any bills to reside in the Sabi Sand. This is just as well because, unlike the average survivor of Middle Eastern politics, he is not a very subtle strategist.
Consider his modus operandi on foreign relations. One sign of his intent to take over another male rhino’s territory is to stamp on the rival’s dung. In rhino lingo, the message is unambiguous: I’m going to do a Julius Caesar on your patch of Gaul.
We learn this having rolled out of our roomy beds with their statutory high thread count for an early morning walk with Castleton manager and game ranger Claude Visagie.
The ubiquitous yellow-billed hornbills glide across the effervescent morning sky. These birds could teach Helen Zille and Mamphela Ramphele a lesson in co-operative governance. When the female is ready to lay her eggs, the male seals her up with mud in a tree and feeds her through a small hole until the chicks are born.
The yellow-billed hornbill also differs philosophically with another politician, Francois Hollande, when it comes to mating habits. The hornbill is monogamous, unlike the French president, who seems to
change partners more often than he orders croissants.
As we walk through the bushveld, we are lucky to spot a rare and larger cousin of the yellow-billed variety, the southern ground hornbill. They have one of the slowest reproductive rates in the bird kingdom: only the dominant pair breed, and then only approximately every nine years. Think of it this way: the odds of the southern ground hornbill raising chicks are about as likely as Kim Kardashian deciding to take ecclesiastical vows — and being accepted.
Visagie turns out to be a walking Wikipedia of the bush. Those billionaires must love him. Did you know that giraffe meat is kosher? How many knees does an elephant have? (Two. The knees are located on its back legs and what appears to be knees on its front legs are actually wrists.)
He demonstrates how devil’s thorn makes a good soap or sunblock when shaken up with water and the twig of a guarrie bush can be modelled into a toothbrush. Leadwood when burnt is a good substitute for toothpaste. Luckily the Castleton bathrooms are palatial, so no need to start foraging for the relevant foliage or to go all Robinson Crusoe any time soon.
Claude demonstrates how if we were tired of the culinary efforts of alpha chef Calum Anderson — which include white-chocolate tart with fermented berries and mushroom soup with truffle oil — we could always forage for the sweet leaves of the buffalo thorn. Giraffes are very aware of this and the tree protects its own foliage with long vicious thorns.
For a beverage, we could roast the seeds of the weeping boerbean, just as the Voortrekkers did when they ran out of coffee. But why bother when Visagie has plied us with Amarula-laced coffee?
We stop at a termite mound, which should be a blueprint for the study of ambition and productivity. If humans were to build structures relative to the size of a termite mound, the result would stretch a mile into the sky and its girth would dwarf Nkandla. Now don’t get any ideas, Number One.
As we return to the lodge, a warthog greets us at the gate. A hamerkop is fishing for her own breakfast of frogs out of the swimming pool as we lay into the eggs and bacon under a marula tree overlooking the waterhole.
Now, a game lodge can have as many scatter cushions as Jay-Z has fans and enough three-star Michelin food to feed the court of Versailles, but the main reason tourists go to the bush is to observe animals in their natural environment. We are in luck. On one game drive we see a pack of rare wild dogs devouring the remnants of a buck. These long-distance runners of the bush will later regurgitate meat for pups that have been hidden away, with adults left to guard them.
Other special sightings include male lions trying to take down a buffalo, who does an impressive impersonation of Nijinsky to survive. A pride of lionesses and their cubs attack the carcass of a kudu with almost as much ferocity as we displayed when devouring Anderson’s beef fillet the night before.
All too soon it’s time to pack our bags. Anybody got the inside track on how to win the British lottery?
The rate is R72 000 per night for the first eight guests. Each additional guest thereafter (up to 12) pays R9 000 per night. Contact reservations on 021 683 3424. —