Rangers Reserve

Beautiful spot, so tranquil and remote. The cottage was simple but homely and had everything we needed. Beds were comfy and the shower hot!

Nothing

The cottage

"The reservation is the perfect place if you're looking to isolate yourself as if you were in a desert or Antarctica, completely cut off from the world. However, be warned that in summer it's unbearably hot, there's no air conditioning, and internet connection is practically non-existent. Unless you own an off-road vehicle, you'll be dependent on the host's transportation to get to the cabin, and once there, you're left without any means to purchase water or groceries. For us, it was a horrendous experience. The owner, seizing the opportunity, has placed shacks in a barren wasteland that no sane person would ever consider staying in. Yet, thanks to fake reviews and withholding information from clients, she manages to sell these glorified farming sheds at the price of hotels. The choice is yours, but my strong recommendation is to look for any other accommodation."

The host was lovely. The family that runs the place/s on site primarily uses it to train rangers to fight poaching, a serious and horrific practice in 21st. century South Africa. Aside from this just business, our primary contact Hilarie was lovely, doing her best to accommodate us at every turn. For instance, we had an evening and morning safari at nearby Aquila but they didn't have accommodation space for us. We reached out to Hilarie, she not only provided us with a place to stay the night but also, for a respectable fee of course, provided us with travel to/from Aquila and her site.

Two things, really. First, based on google maps we thought the house we were staying in was 15 minutes from Aquila. In fact, it took 15 minutes for the drive from Aquila to the entrance to Hilarie's property. Thereafter it was another 25-30 minutes on an incredibly bumpy and rocky private road. We wouldn't have been able to avoid this, of course, but after an incredibly long day of traveling it would have been best to know this ahead of time. (We also would've preferred to know this in regard to when we needed to wake up the next morning as it was necessarily earlier than we originally anticipated. When one has a short window of travel such info. is critical to know.) Second, the house is quite rustic. We are a low maintenance family (two adults + two teens). You feel like it is a place on farmland, which it is. And perhaps seeing a few spiders the size of an adult male's hand in one's house is the norm in most of South Africa, which we saw immediately upon entering. And it helped to know, from Hilarie, that the spider/s was/were benign. But over the course of the 10-15 minutes after she left, we saw a few of scorpions. Thanks to google (though the internet connection was weak), we were able to determine that there are some 150 types of scorpions in South Africa and, most importantly, the ones we saw were harmless. But it was unnerving regardless, and I barely slept over the long night. (We told Hilarie and her husband the next morning, they apologized, and they said the previous tenants must've left the front door opened when they checked out.) Perhaps we would've stayed at this place even if we knew these two things. And again, Hilarie was lovely. But it would've been best to know.

The solitude, quietness, and the experience of exploring the cave beneath our accommodation.

Limited activities aside from taking walks.

The accommodation in total, it was ego friendly, spacious, clean and airy. It has everyting you need to have a restfull experience in nature. A definite must.

Nothing

Amazing cottage in stunning location

We loved everything