Shiluvari Lakeside Lodge has a resident bird guide to help twitchers find the many ‘specials’ of this hotspot area. Samson Mulaudzi was one of the first Sasol-accredited bird guides in Limpopo and he is considered expert in riverine and woodland species. He’ll also guide you to ‘secret’ habitats he’s discovered in the surrounding Soutpansberg. Shiluvari’s specials include African broadbill and finfoot, blue-spotted wood dove, fish eagles and ospreys.

Contact Samson on 083 662 9960 (Samson.birding@webmail.co.za)

 

The owners of Shiluvari Lakeside Lodge co-founded the Ribolla Arts Route – named after the distinctive mountain peak that overlooks Elim and which is said to be ‘the very last ‘flick of the dragon’s tail’, the Drakensberg Mountains.

 

You can visit the artists and crafters at their homes and workshops with a Theta-qualified guide on a full or half-day tour, or self-drive using GPS co-ordinates available from the lodge. But be warned – some of the gravel roads in the rural townships are heavily corrugated, sign-posting is minimal, and a walk from your car is necessary to get to some of the artists’ far-flung homes. Guides provide insight and help with translating local languages. Contact Daniel Khosa 072 235 4543 ribollata@mweb.co.za, 015 556 4262.

 

If you’re into history, add a cosmopolitan mix of legendary figures, heroes and villains from across the ocean to this African, baobab-strewn landscape.

 

At Shiluvari Lakeside Lodge the stories abound – between Michel Girardin and Charles Leach, a local historian and tour guide, you’ll be entranced with their story-telling magic. If Charles –a distant relative of the Portuguese trader, Joao Albasini, a focal character of this part of South Africa – isn’t there, look him up: he’s a fount of information who has painstakingly researched local history, with a focus on the Bushveld Carbineers – among them some of the villains of the 19^th and early 20^th centuries. A cohort of British and Commonwealth soldiers, who included Australian Breaker Morant, was executed for murdering Boers who finally surrendered at the end of the Anglo-Boer War. Little has been publicised about the extent of their murderous role, says Charles. He’s gathered archival material that paints a very different picture from that glamourised in the hit movie that took the Australian’s name.

 

Charles has established the first ‘Zoutpansberg Skirmishes Route’, which traces the many tragedies and heroics played out in this region during the drawn-out guerrilla phase of the 2^nd Anglo-Boer War.

 

Then there is the intriguing life – and tragic death at Elim Hospital – of William Eagle, a North American (Canadian) Native – the only ‘Red Indian’ known to have served in South Africa, and probably the only member of the Peoples of the First Nations to encounter early apartheid in South Africa. Eagle helped police these early frontier ‘badlands’, so close to the infamous Crooks’ Corner that provided easy access to Mozambique and Zimbabwe for those fleeing South Africa.

 

Charles has written a book about William Eagle, titled “ …of a Lion and eagle”, and restored the Canadian Indian’s grave, along with those of other historic figures, at the site of the original Bushveld Carbineers headquarters at Fort Edward, near Elim. He’s also set up a small museum at a nearby lodge 30kms south of Makhado (Louis Trichardt) on the N1.

 

Contact Charles at 083 228 3874 or 015 516 1466, or email him at charles@leachprinters.co.za

 

 

Captions:

 

	Betty&michel: Shiluvari Lakeside Lodge manager Betty Hlungwane – formerly a ‘pump jockey’ at an Elim petrol station – is, in the African sense, Michel’s sister. Their grandfathers fought side-by-side in World War II, having formed a bond of friendship as they grew up together and, as brothers-in-arms, saw battle together in North Africa from 1939.
Art 3921: Art created by the community is on display at Shiluvari.
	Sunrise3901: Dramatic sunrises paint the Limpopo skies and the Albasini Lake.
	Daniel3961: Daniel Khosa, a Theta-qualified tour guide for the Ribolla Arts Route and Tourism Association, founded by the owners of Shiluvari Lakeside Lodge.
Sculpt3967, Domba3969, albasini-eel3919, sculpt3970 The works of local artists adorn the gardens.
Muesli3927: Home-made muesli with yoghurt and fresh fruit – a feast for the eyes.
	Chefs4005: Chef Poppy Ramashiya (left) and her assistant, Maria Netshisaulu.

 

No, that doesn’t mean scouring the Internet, which can be a cyberhell of long out-of-date misinformation, regurgitated ‘facts’ and PR-speak. ‘Pristine’ and ‘awe-inspiring’ descriptions are about as accurate as copywriters’ imaginative conjurings about places they’ve never visited.

 

A recent ‘around Lesotho’ trip kept us within South Africa’s borders, the aim an exploration of all those towns and villages redolent with slow country living, simpler pleasures and steeped in historical intrigue. The ones that really, really need tourism to ignite their failing economic spirits.

 

The journey brought with it daily doses of stupendous scenic splendour, spurring a kind of mental mantra along the lines of Paton’s ‘oh, but this land is beautiful’.

 

And it is: beyond beautiful and into the realms of adjective overdose.

 

So the overnight hovels we encountered were even harder to stomach.

 

For three weeks we meandered through the mountains of the Eastern Cape highlands, up into the Free State and back to KZN, but it was at our first stop in Matatiele that our accommodation ‘research’ revealed its flaws.

 

Few caravan parks, it seems, are in a fit state to exist, let alone allow in visitors. At Matatiele, from its dubious ablutions, a crack running the length of both the grimy men’s and women’s facilities and threatening to split it clean down the middle, to leaking u-bends and flooded floors, to its dirt-encrusted showers, this was not a place to relax and enjoy country ambiance.

 

Maclear’s municipal site must have been quite attractive at some point. Now the only buzz comes from the flies and mosquitoes at home in the swamp, and the faulty electrical connections. A foul river awash with plastic and dubious matter, and out-of-bounds ablutions (since they were trashed by the workers housed there by contractors who tarred the new Mount Fletcher link road) quickly saw us on our way.

 

An unkempt, litter-strewn Zastron – incongruously sporting a Caravan Club of South Africa approval badge – had us back on the road again. Its kitchen and toilets were overflowing with the home-making detritus of ‘workers’ – who assured us they weren’t actually living there and were open for business.  Officers at the municipality insisted: ‘sorry, there are no caravan parks in Zastron’.

 

It turned out there is a first-rate, private, caravan park (and B&B) there, called Mountain View. But you’ll find it only if you speak to the locals, since the town’s officers pretend it doesn’t exist.