The royal treatment

THE plane from Johannesburg to our safari destination has been delayed and our one night at Royal Legend Safari Lodge&Spa in South Africa's Greater Kruger national park seems horribly short.

Royal Legend's thatched pavilion is set near a waterhole favoured by giraffes.

THE plane from Johannesburg to our safari destination has been delayed and our one night at Royal Legend Safari Lodge&Spa in South Africa's Greater Kruger national park seems horribly short.

We have missed the late-afternoon game drive and our ranger Fanwell and tracker Rufus are feeling the pressure. There is just one early-morning outing in which to fill the standard checklist of big-game sightings.

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They needn't be worried. We four travellers have been on safari earlier in the week and are happy with the incidentals and the accidentals of the bushveld. I remember once in Tanzania being told that in the quest to view the Big Five -- rhino, elephant, lion, leopard and cape buffalo -- many safari-goers fail to appreciate the bush's most charming discoveries. There is even a Big Nine category, apparently, with cheetah, zebra, giraffe and hippo joining the major league.

But, just as beguilingly, there is a rather wry Small Five group: rhino beetle, elephant shrew, ant lion, leopard tortoise and the buffalo weaver bird. We keep our eyes focused in bushes and branches and prepare to be delighted by the little fry in a tiny corner of the flat and thorny 60,000ha Timbavati Game Reserve.

Fanwell and Rufus relax and soon we are ticking off sightings of elephants, Burchell's zebras, warthogs scampering off with their tails whipped in the air, ground hornbills and silver-backed jackals with their sly eyes and oddly pretty coats. We stop for vacuum flask coffee and crunchy rusks and enjoy the creeping warmth as the sun rises and a herd of cape buffalo ambles by, dust rising in plumes as they pass.

Back at the lodge for a hearty cooked breakfast, there are two long-lashed giraffes sipping at the waterhole beside the thatched dining pavilion and extended teak deck. With splayed legs and necks bent low, they look uncomfortable. This is their most vulnerable position, says Fanwell. "If a lion comes along, they can't easily get up." We are relieved when they drink their fill and sashay off, these long-limbed supermodels of the bush.

Royal Legend is a small set-up and satisfyingly comfortable without being ultra-luxe. It has a good wine list and well-stocked cellar, a lovely pool with plenty of sunbeds and management by locals, not city ring-ins. There are 10 chalets with thatched roofs that overhang like shady brims; they are all well spread apart, encircled with long grasses, and most with views of a river that fills in the wet season. There's no perimeter fence and game wander about freely. Vervet monkeys, always with an eye on the buffet, scamper about, "as if they own the place" one guest says, laughing.

The chalets are enormous abodes with mosquito-netted four-posters, cane seating, lovely decorative touches such as cupboards with reed-lined doors, beaded and feathered curtain tie-backs and lampshades patterned with porcupine quills. The bathroom could accommodate a family of hippos; there's a corner spa tub, a choice of indoor or outdoor showers and, most intriguingly, a window-walled loo with a view. It's a bit disconcerting to be installed on the throne as guineafowls rustle in the grass and a juvenile male impala pauses by the full-length window for a better look. But as my mother would have said of any such eventuality, "They've probably seen worse."

Royal Legend's manager, Pollen, who looks like Tiger Woods and has a great grin, runs a shipshape show and the staff are unfailingly helpful. If you like the sound of this safari camp, its parent company, Legend Lodges, Hotels and Resorts, founded in 1999, runs a portfolio of accommodation in South Africa including city hotels and hideouts with names as beguiling as Zebra Stables and Leopard's View.

The highlight of our brief stay is dinner the night of our arrival in the low-fenced outdoor boma, at tables set in a semi-circle and lit by hurricane lamps. We are facing a campfire over which the chefs are heating black pots of homely stews and pap. We quietly watch the flames -- the bush television they call it in these parts -- and think how far removed it all seems from the cities we've visited in the past few days.

Then suddenly, with a crash and a bang, the kitchen team appears in a conga line, smashing saucepan lids like cymbals, stomping and singing. The waiters join in and their pure, clear voices rise into the cold dark sky.

We may only have had one night at Royal Legend, but what a night.

Susan Kurosawa was a guest of South AfricanTourism.

Checklist
Royal Legend Safari Lodge & Spa is in the Greater Kruger national park, Limpopo Province, about five hours by road from Johannesburg, or fly to Hoedspruit and be met by lodge vehicle.

Full board of three meals and twice-daily drives in the Timbavati Game Reserve from Rand 2200 ($334) a person twin-share depending on the season. No children under six permitted on game drives (child-minding available and activities designed for junior guests). More: www.legendlodges.co.za. 
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