Closest town: Hoedspruit

Closest commercial airport: Eastgate (HDS) , literally directly across the road.

Kapama has undergone a number of changes over the years. It used to consist of two separate parts:

- The big block across from Eastgate,

- a smaller one separated from the former by Guernsey Road. This block jutted straight into Thornybush, giving the latter a very slim waist.

Weirdly, the main lodge was originally located in the small block, the big one was only home to Buffalo Camp (tented) as well as Rhino Inn and the Lion Den.

Rhino Inn was a restaurant catering to large coach groups. Guests would first go on an afternoon/night drive, have dinner, and then return to their lodgings outside the reserve.

Lion Den was a tree house in an enclosure that also housed a few well-fed lions. Guests could spend the night imagining they were surrounded by these lions. I once saw a male lion climb right over the electrified 2.4 meter game fence, just because one of the lionesses on the inside was in estrous. The things that hormones can make you do!

A few years ago the smaller Kapama block was incorporated into Thornybush (q.v.). It had first been sold to a property developer who wanted to turn it into a wildlife estate. That had all of Thornybush up in arms. After years of negotiations the estate scheme was finally abandoned.

The big block is 13,000 hectares in size according to Kapama, but I’ve always heard it was a bit over 10,000. Perhaps they have acquired (parts of) the adjacent commercial farms. In any case, despite being entirely fenced in, the place is big enough to constitute a functioning game reserve in its own right. The owners have also invested a huge sum of money in developing the reserve, and it shows. Kapama has the fanciest game fences ever seen in the Lowveld; the network of game viewing roads is dense, well laid out and equally well maintained; and so forth. However:

- Kapama is wedged between Argyle Road, Guernsey Road, and the R40 provincial road. The R40 is a major thoroughfare, and the railroad runs parallel to it. On quiet nights you can hear the traffic, cars, trucks, semis and trains all the way on the other side of the reserve. Clearly.

- The Cahorra Bassa powerlines run diagonally across Kapama. To call them unsightly is an understatement, and the bush under these powerlines has been thoroughly cleared, and is kept clear.

- Kapama is on the extended centerline of Eastgate’s main runway, which is also used by the air force.

- Kapama has gone from one small tented camp and two strange sideshows to housing four lodges, not counting Camp Jabulani (elephant-back safaris). Well over 200 beds in total, which equals some 25 game viewing vehicles on a bad day. Plus the elephants. That’s far too many, the problem can only be ameliorated by running a very slick show and keeping the vehicles on both a tight schedule and a tight leash.

Kapama comprises of pretty much run-of-the-mill bushveld. No really outstanding features such as koppies, etc. The reserve does front on the Klaserie River in places, which at that point is not a major river, although it is officially a perennial one. There’s a pretty big dam just upstream, so the flow is regulated.

I’ve only stayed at Buffalo Camp (which was nice enough), I can therefore not comment on the others from personal experience.