The Timbavati Private Nature Reserve comprises 53 392ha of pristine African bushveld, and shares an unfenced boundary with the Kruger National Park. The reserve belongs to the Timbavati Associaton, a non-profit organisation in the Timbavati area that has been dedicated to conservation since 1962.
The Timbavati Association is comprised of fifty privately owned farms, which together make up the reserve. Each member of the Association operates under the Association’s motto, which is to restore the land in the reserve to the conditions that are believed to constitute its natural state i.e. conditions that would have been present had the land never been subject to the hand of man.
This is what makes the Timbavati experience so special. It’s the dedication to conservation and the respect for the African bush that provide you with the very real bushveld experience that is Timbavati.
The reserve is the original home of the famous ‘White Lions of Timbavati’. These lions were discovered here in the mid-1970s and were, for many years, believed to be of a different species. They also had various spiritual powers attributed to them by the local people. The truth is that the White Lions are subject to a condition called ‘leucism’, where their pelt is white but their skin and eyes remain pigmented. There have been no White Lions in the Timbavati reserve itself for a number of years, but they have been spotted in nearby areas of the Kruger National Park.
There are twelve lodges in the reserve, each one offering a once-in-a-lifetime bushveld experience. Some of the most popular activities at the lodges include spa treatments, wilderness hikes and safaris, environmental interpretation courses, open air dining and traditional singing and dancing. Timbavati lodges
Getting there: from Gauteng, take the N4 going East into Mpumalanga. Continue to Nelspruit. from Nelspruit, take the R40 going North. Follow this road to the town of Klaserie. Here, take the R351 going to Orpen Gate. Orpen gate is the closes gate in the Kruger National Park that will allow access to Timbavati.
| More info on the area of Lowveld | More info on the Mpumalanga area |
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