My Time At Aquilla Game Reserve

Last month as part of my South Africa Trip I was lucky enough to spend two nights at the fabulous Aquilla Game reserve.

Lets’ be honest, you can’t go to South Africa and not go on Safari. Aquilla has it all, you can see all the Big 5  Lion, Leopard, Rhino, Elephants & Buffalo and it’s only a 2.5hrs drive from Cape Town, so its the perfect place to tag on a Safari adventure.  The drive there through the vineyards is quite breathtaking and yes that is snow you see on the photo! South Africa’s just their worst winter in many years and I have to say it was pretty cold!

When we arrived, we were very pleased to find out we had been upgraded to one of the luxury lodges. It was super cosy with a large double bedroom, smaller attic room, Air conditioning, Log Fire, alfresco shower and a lovely balcony overlooking the reserve.

The resort itself is stunning. Onsite there is the main restaurant where a superb buffet is served daily for breakfast, lunch and evening meals, Public Bar, Cigar Bar, Spa with indoor pool, Sauna and steam room as well as an infinity pool and wet bar.

After checking in to our lodge and enjoying hearty lunch we were off on our first Game drive.

After literally ten minutes we were sat with our jaws dropping as we watched Rhinos bathing as Giraffes and Elephants wandered by. I think we got a bit too close to the elephants that day as one of them started to chase after our van! We stopped half way round to stretch our legs, take in the view and enjoy a glass of wine as we watched the animals milling past.

That evening the resort held a stargazing safari complete with hot toddies and roasted marshmallows which I thought was a nice touch

Bright and early the next morning we were ready to go again as he headed into the reserve for our early morning drive. This one was my favourite as we managed to find the lions pretty quickly and you can see from the videos just how close they were!!

It was a very cold morning so after returning to camp and warming up with a hot breakfast and tea we decided to go to the Spa. As we were staying for two nights, the spa was included in our package, daily cost worked out approx £15 per day. It was a lovely place to warm up and enjoy a few hours.

Included with our package was four games with the option to swap one for a horse riding Safari. I wasn’t so sure about riding lion food on to a game reserve but my friend has never been horse riding so persuaded me to sign up. I was happy when we arrived and were told the horses were not reacting well to the cold weather so they offered us ATV’s instead. A much more fun and probably safe option! I must admit with the noise ATV’s make I wasn’t so sure we would see any animals but I was pleasantly surprised, that wasn’t the case and we managed to get some nice pictures.

Although we didn’t find the elusive Leopard. We thoroughly enjoyed time at Aquilla and hey four out five’s not bad.