It's all luxury with a light footprint at this off-grid, hi-tech Waterberg lodge

Clouds  are gathering as we travel from Joburg towards the Waterberg; it's heatwave season but the skies promise rain, and rain is what I hope for. There's been none since the previous summer. Things are cracking up.

As we turn off the main road and in through the gates to our destination,  I think  about writers who quote a dictionary definition of a word, and wonder if doing so is condescending. But we're in the Lapalala Game Reserve in Limpopo —  50,000ha  of wilderness — and before I throw out the term as something recently made trendy, I think I should check its meaning for myself. 

Hey Google: what's “wilderness” mean?

wilderness/wɪldənɪs/noun

1. an uncultivated, uninhabited, and inhospitable region. Similar: wilds wastes uninhabited region inhospitable region uncultivated region badlands jungle desert bundu

2. a neglected or abandoned area: “the garden had become a wilderness of weeds and bushes” Similar: wasteland neglected area abandoned area no-man's-land

If I compiled a dictionary, I wouldn't go with most of those. I'd choose wilds, jungle, desert, bundu. But what does wilderness mean on the ground? Is it to look up and see no power lines, no communication towers or fake palm trees? Perhaps not even vapour trails marking an air route; there'd be no rumble  of traffic, no construction noise, no music, not even the whisper of data running through fibre.

Must it be pristine? Or could it be land that has been rehabilitated, returned to nature; restocked with the indigenous flora and fauna that were once there? 

The people behind Lepogo Lodges (comprising two camps, Noka, where I am spending a weekend, and Melote House, opening next year) believe that to  retain (even retrain) a wilderness area, one's footfall must be very, very soft.

At Noka, every element of design is perfectly thought through: state-of-the-art luxury tented structures are raised on stilts, resulting in a tiny ecological footprint. For power   there are solar panels, brilliantly built into the roof of a 250m walkway that connects the individual villas to the communal area of dining, kitchen, bar. Truly way off the grid. 

CONSERVATION DREAMS

In the early 1980s, conservationists Dale Parker and Clive Walker shared an idea to create a reserve by buying up neighbouring farms and returning the land to its natural state by restocking indigenous fauna and flora. Their vision resulted in the Lapalala Wilderness, 50,000ha rich in biodiversity and ecology and an important part of the Waterberg Biosphere Reserve. In 1990, Lapalala became the first private reserve in SA to bring in  black rhino and it is now one of the leading rhino sanctuaries in the country. 

There is a similar love for animals and their wellbeing at Lepogo Lodges.  “Lepogo” is derived from the Sotho for cheetah and its owners have been instrumental in the reintroduction of cheetah to the reserve, including hosting a breeding programme and funding research. 

We get some sense of the vision on our first morning drive as we come across a cheetah and her cub lying a few metres from their day-old kill. Ranger Hendrie Cloete behaves like a proud father, joyful that Lepogo's conservation efforts are being seen close up — with full stomachs and contented poses.  The cub is rubbing itself against its mother, who is motionless but for the twitching of her beautiful tail. 

It's big five territory, but we get caught up in the other kind of twitching. As an amateur, I can only sit back in silent admiration of Aimee and Ross Mclearie, expert birders with whom we are sharing our drive. They can identify a bird from a glint of colour or the shape of a tail on a blob in a tree 50m away. Using a call identification app, we entice a few birds out of the bush and between them Aimee, Ross and Hendrie tick off a few from the list of more than 300 species found here. 

The twice-daily game drives are long and generous; every view filled with something beautiful. Rolling hills, striking rock, the glorious Palala River. Its water is among the purest in Southern Africa and perfect for swimming in, as long as you have a ranger with you keeping an eye out for predators.

And dotted everywhere are the animals that have always belonged here:  zebras, giraffes, elephants, rhinos, wildebeest, bushpigs, plus around 20 antelope species, among them eland, impala, kudu, sable, roan and tsessebe. A horn-filled paradise. 

We stop for a picnic breakfast on the river and walk out onto the smooth flat rocks. We're served smoothies made with seasonal local fruits, coffee with Amarula and delightfully light and crunchy rusks made in the camp's kitchen. The silence is immense and perfect. There are sounds — frogs, water, birds, leaves, but it's all natural. There's only nature here. Some of my questions about wilderness are starting to be answered. 

STORM IN THE BED

Then there's the question of wildness — when the thunderstorm finally arrives it offers many  hundreds of lightning strikes and the darkest of flat-bellied clouds. We're escorted from our villa by a ranger with an umbrella. The umbrella is useless and it's wonderful to get fat raindrops landing on our humid bodies. We don't linger over our delicious three-course dinner because I want to watch the storm from my bed. With the whole front of the room open to the sky. I want it wild in the wilderness and I'm not disappointed. 

The crazy irony is that, within that wildness, there is a  technology so perfect that together they blend into one harmonious unit.

From an iPad next to the bed, you can close the doors, the shutters and the blinds without moving more than a finger. You can  adjust the lamps and the aircon, and when you get up to have a bubble bath in the middle of the night, there are lights under your feet that show the way. (Did I mention there's no Eskom, no noisy generators, no load-shedding?)

On the last afternoon I sit watching the baboons on the cliff next to my rim pool. In the Palala River below, elephants cover themselves with mud. The storm has moved on and the sky alternates sunshine and cloud.

The troop is in full-on spa mode. Relaxed adults are getting comb-outs, massages and de-fleaing sessions, while the youngsters  leap out at each other from behind rocks and fly between the trees. They're watching me watching them, and I think  this must be where the cellphone selfie pout originated. They pretend to not be looking at me, and while doing this they angle their heads and make kissing poses with their mouths.

Maybe we got it from them or maybe they got it from us. Maybe it shows we still have some wildness in us and that we're not as sophisticated as we like to believe. I wish I could just swing  off my balcony and join them. I wink and pout but they don't invite me. 

GETAWAY AT A GLANCE 

Where it is: In the Waterberg region of Limpopo province, about a four-hour drive from Joburg, via the N1. The lodge can arrange fly-in charters and transfers by road. 

Accommodation: Lepogo Lodges consists of two separate lodges, both of which can be booked in their entirety. Noka Camp sleeps up to 12 people in five villas, one of which is for families or a bigger group. 

What is has: 50,000ha of  African wilderness with and over 60 mammal species including cheetahs, elephants, rhinos, buffalos, lions and leopards, and a huge variety of birdlife, reptiles and insects,  in the malaria-free Lapalala Game Reserve.

Activities: Morning and afternoon/evening guided game drives. Picnics in the bush. Guests can also book night drives and dinner in the bush. Bush walks, bush camping, fishing, river cruises, astronomy, photography and more. Expert safari guides, conservationists and  ecologists are available. 

Rates:  From R16,500 per person per night, all-inclusive. The camp is also available for exclusive-use bookings, for a maximum of 12 people, at R172,000 per night, all-inclusive. This special offer (R20,000 off the usual rate) is valid for bookings made by June 30 for travel up to December 15 2022.

Enquire with the lodge about special rates for South Africans.

Contact: See lepogolodges.com or email info@lepogolodges.com.

• Peta Scop was a guest of Lepogo Lodges.

GOOD-DEED GETAWAY 

Lepogo Lodges is a not-for-profit venture. Operations director Kate Hughes says: “It is one of the few lodges globally giving 100% of any financial gains back into the reserve for the benefit of wildlife, local community and future generations.”

It also has a carbon offset programme, through which guests' carbon footprint is calculated from the moment they leave home to the time they return. Lepogo Lodges then converts this to a monetary figure and asks guests to choose one of three projects to which the money will go: a community stove project; a local forest trust; or a global tree programme.