Cheetahs at Madikwe Safari Lodge in South Africa. (Photo by David Cogswell)
The safari at Madikwe Safari Lodge in the north of South Africa near the Botswana border began with a 40-minute flight on Federal Air from Johannesburg's O.R. Tambo International Airport on a nine-seater aircraft. The Madikwe Game Reserve is said to be the fifth largest game reserve in South Africa. It was opened in 1991 on reclaimed farmlands. The reserve is home to a dozen or more different safari lodges of various categories, including eco-lodges, self-catering lodges and family-friendly lodges. The reserve is malaria free and has the Big Five game animals, but is one of the lesser-known reserves in South Africa.
We landed on Madikwe's eastern landing strip, with a brick hut with a thatched roof, and were met by our hosts from the Madikwe Safari Lodge.
Our group of nine boarded two safari vehicles and headed to Lelapa Lodge, one of three lodges within the Madikwe Safari Lodge.
Our field guide was Jolyon Neytzell-deWilde, or Jo, the safari manager at Madikwe. He was one of those people who devote their lives to living in the bush and being intimately connected with it so that he can seek out and find the wildlife at any time. He never gets tired of exploring the bush. To him it is always new, and could never get dull. We started to see wildlife on our way from the landing strip to the lodge.
We started to see amazing wildlife almost immediately, starting with zebras.
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