“Our game-viewing vehicles were white Isuzu bakkies with plastic seats on the back and a cooler box you had to tie to the side so it didn’t roll about, and that was it, that’s how we started.”
The Amakhala Game Reserve began with only two giraffes as the “ultimate safari experience”.
Twenty-five years later, the reserve has flourished to become a conservation anchor.
It recently expanded to 10,000ha with nine bespoke accommodations ranging from luxury tented camps to quaint settler houses.
It is one of the homes of WildEarth, a live broadcast show and app, where you can tune in to live animal sightings online, at dusk and dawn, and ask rangers questions as they zoom in on lion, rhino, cheetah or multiple antelope species.
Amakhala co-founder Dr William Fowlds, a wildlife vet and esteemed rhino conservationist, reflected on their humble beginnings as Eastern Cape settlers and how decades later, they are patching the landscape together and dropping fences to allow nature to roam, even through smart underground subways called corridors.
The same families who farmed the land for generations are reviving the natural ecosystem.
The Daily Dispatch got to be a tourist for a few days and left feeling in awe of the animal kingdom.
Lions saunter past, cheetahs are up close feeding, I could count the eyelashes of a buffalo.
We eat breakfast on a hill surrounded by giraffes, spot the old white kudu, and hear stories of Peanut the porcupine who was saved from being sold for eating by someone on the side of the road outside Makhanda.
On Thursday, we arrived at the Leeuwenbosch Country House in Amakhala, and after a light lunch, hopped into a vehicle for our first game drive.
Everyone calls our guide Ouboet. Mthuthuzeli Zealand, 50, would take us out for the next few days, extolling a wealth of knowledge about animals, birds and the land.
He would mimic the birdcalls so well they would sing back, he knew where to stop for the views and had a neat trick of capturing zoomed-in pictures on a cellphone using binoculars.
Amakhala’s roads are part of the fun, bouncing on the 4x4 tracks, Ouboet calls it a “safari massage”.
He is in constant communication with other rangers in the reserve through walkie-talkies, they swap sightings of “ndlovu”,"inyati”, “ingonyama” — their way of keeping the sightings a surprise as most tourists don’t understand what these words mean.
Three male cheetahs have been spotted feeding on an antelope in an old river bed, Ouboet takes a back road and we line up in the three land cruisers, with the WildEarth “Landy” camera loaded on a plinth, and watch the beautiful cats, not at all fazed by us gawkers. Nature taking its course!
Ouboet takes us to the top of a nearby hill and we see the trio only metres away, stomachs comically ballooned.
Sundowners are enjoyed with a gorgeous panorama, joined by another game viewing vehicle with Irish tourists aboard.
They started their holiday in Cape Town, a hairdresser and her once pale, now burnt-faced fiancé.
Ouboet has been a guide for 14 years. He is also an esteemed imbongi — a Xhosa praise singer, whose voice rang out over Makhanda for Nelson Mandela’s return to the National Arts Festival in the 1990s.
A painting of his ancestor by Fowlds’s aunt, Mary Fowlds, hangs in the Leeuwenbosch lounge.
He tells the story of how the old man did not want to sit still for the portrait — he kept getting up to go and check on his goats.
Ouboet says: “When I started at Amakhala I worked on the fence. I know the whole reserve.
“Then it was cutting the grass, then I was watching the rhinos at night, then they sent me to school.”
This is the case for most of the staff — many were raised in one of the six villages attached to the reserve and after school are given a chance to work in the reserve’s many tiers of hospitality, or in the veld.
Ouboet’s first guide training was an intense three-month course. He tells the younger ones to start early.
“When I was in school there was no-one to teach us scientific names.
“I thought studying wildlife would be ‘OK this is an elephant’ but it’s climatology, geology, you study the rocks, you need to know the birds and [the name of] every tree.
“You must know the stars — if someone is lost in the bush at night — you must know the planets. Then in three months, you write your final exam.
“I started guiding and I said I will help the boys coming in. They must know the scientific names.
“Now all the boys pass with high grades.”
The sun sets over the golden hills, while we sip on gin and tonics.
“Up here, this is a nice office for me,” he says.
The Leeuwenbosch Country House was converted from the Fowlds’s family home.
Built in 1908, it has been home to five generations.
The walls are hung with wedding portraits and heirlooms atop old polished darkwood furniture.
The staff, who handle us with expertise, are all locals from Qonce, Buffalo City, Makhanda and Kariega.
Guests’ comfort is carefully is considered. A cold bottle of water is set beside your heated bed at night, the crisp sheet pulled back on a corner, scented bathroom knick-knacks, good coffee for the dawn game drive.
The décor is tasteful and homely. We stayed in the Shearers’ Lodge, rooms converted from an old barn, with a massive deck overlooking the hills and open-plan braai and couch area.
In the succulent garden, we hear the constant chatter of so many birds. But also the regular warthog family which nibble the lawn outside. Several tortoises are grooving around in the spekboom.
The earth is dry, dusty, beautiful faded vermilion.
Meals are hearty yet realistic. The breakfast buffet had plenty of options, I loved the butter shaped like little flowers.
The three-course dinner is divine. We eat at a heavy wood table beside the crackling fire. After being out in the wild all afternoon, it is lovely.
A rhythm unfolds over the course of the stay — early rise for a quick first, light brekkie, wait at the vehicle port for a sunrise game drive, back for second breakfast, and then a nap.
Up for the afternoon animal sighting and sundowners, home for a delicious three-course dinner, plonk into a warm bed, and then sleep.
On Friday, other guests arrived for their first morning drive, four tourists from Melbourne, Australia, who have dreamt of going on “safari”.
World-title-winning disability sailor Krista Bailey, 54, had met friend Tom Millington, 56, in a support group years before, and had planned the trip with their carers Nicki Jorgensen and Julia Lack.
Bailey, who has a form of muscular dystrophy, was in an electric wheelchair and Millington has limited mobility after suffering a stroke.
The game vehicle was brought to the mini-garden outside their room for accessibility.
Bailey said: “It’s everything I’ve hoped for so far. People have been lovely.
“No matter the terrain, everyone is very accommodating and they are all trying to help. I just think it’s wonderful.
“I have been reading books on SA and safari since I was 16, so for a long time.”
The group praised Leeuwenbosch for pre-installing additional balancing aids, such as handrails in the bathrooms before their arrival.
Ouboet had made a small wooden step-up overnight for Millington to assist him getting into the game vehicle’s high seats.
Millington said: “They did a great job. We had to have rails, they had it all set up. They got it done and followed through for it.”
Fowlds spent the afternoon driving us through the landscape, stopping at God’s Window where a wooden plaque records the names of rhinos lost to poaching.
Below us in the valley a pair of white rhino lope through the dry river bed.
“There are big visions in the Eastern Cape. ”
A new wildlife corridor where the Bushman’s River runs underneath the N2 highway was unveiled at the reserve’s 25th celebration, opening a stretch of land that wild animals have not accessed for more than 200 years.
Fowlds explained how over time, various planned corridors would allow reserves to drop their fences and create a mega-reserve — meaning bigger territories for animals, more tourism and land restoration opportunities.
“Ecologists have to get together and work out how the animals are going to be managed.
“We’ve got to try to integrate those ecological management structures together before the fences come down.”
For Fowlds, and staff on the reserve, rhinos are deeply protected and loved.
Guests are asked never to use location software when taking photos.
Fowlds said keeping the animals safe from poachers while also allowing them to be viewed by guests was a balancing act.
On the Friday evening, the Amakhala Foundation organised a special viewing of The Last Ranger, a short film yet to be officially released in SA, which has won numerous international accolades, notably winning the best short narrative award at the 2024 pan-African Film Festival in Los Angeles, making it an eligible contender for the 2025 Oscars.
It is written by David S Lee, whom Fowlds took to a poaching scene and the filmmaker vowed to use his talents to create awareness.
It was written as a full-length film, but was adapted. The film is the second in a series by When The World Stopped, an international film project founded by Los Angeles-based Darwin Shaw and William Hawkes.
Set during the Covid-19 pandemic and filmed in 2021, The Last Ranger depicts the atrocity of rhino poaching, as well as the heartbreaking lived experience of game rangers, and poachers.
Without giving too much away, the film draws on true stories. For example, that of Thandi the rhino from the Kariega Game Reserve, whose recovery from the brutal attack by a poacher was headed by Fowlds.
Thandi’s story, including the offspring she produced, were hailed as a triumph for the species.
Members of the Amakhala Anti Rhino Poaching Unit spend their days and nights protecting the creatures.
It is a dangerous job. A ranger said: “I saw my first rhino when I was 30. Some people only see animals as meat, but animals are special, they deserve to live.”
The unit members feared leaving for work and not returning.
“That’s what we always think, that’s why we pray, day and night before we go out — ‘God, protect me on the job, put me under your wings so I can come back in one piece’.”
An APU member, who watched the film with his daughter — both wearing matching black puffy jackets — said: “It was painful watching the film, seeing the loss of the horn, that’s why we save them — for our great-grandchildren.
“Rhinos mean everything to me, it gives me life, and a better future for my kids.”
• The Daily Dispatch was a guest of Amakhala Game Reserve
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