Your Big Five luxury safari awaits
Set in the remote west of the vast Kwandwe Private Game Reserve in the Eastern Cape, Uplands Homestead is an intimate African safari experience embracing vintage-style, elegant living.
Just as the house was designed for family and close friends over one hundred years ago, its purpose is just the same today. Picture elegant farmhouse living in 1905 with manicured lawns surrounded by wilderness and set in a valley with fiery aloes on its slopes.
Fast forward over a century, add a cool swimming pool and pagoda at the bottom of the lawn for hot summer days, maybe followed by a refreshing G&T enjoyed poolside or on the terrace at sunset. Now imagine living it at graceful Uplands Homestead in Kwandwe Private Game Reserve. It’s an evocative African safari experience in a deeply luxurious lodge.
Three double suites with private verandahs and en-suite bathrooms offer the best of modern comfort and yesteryear nostalgia. There’s air conditioning and underfloor heating, alongside antique mirrors and yellowwood chests. Quite exquisite, really.
A full bush experience
All the enticing experiences of the reserve are on offer too – with your own private vehicle and guide for game drives. There are nature walks, big game walks, fishing and specialist safaris too – like birding or photography. Because Uplands Homestead welcomes families with warm hospitality, there are tailored activities for children – and plenty for the whole family to all enjoy together in their Big Five accommodation bush hideaway.
The relaxed atmosphere of the homestead encourages you to kick off your shoes and put your feet up, maybe even enjoy an in-room spa treatment between activities. It really feels like you have all the space in the world to do as you please, and the sense of privacy and seclusion is synonymous with luxurious safari accommodation.
Here, everything but everything happens according to your choice, there is no schedule but the one you set. It truly is the perfect safari. So, time can stand still if you wish, while you soak up the beauty and bounty of the natural world, cocooned in the splendour of yesteryear.
What we love!
- The stately feeling of living antiquity in the homestead is palpable.
- Wooden floors and antique accent pieces adorn the luxury safari lodge.
- Cosy mohair blankets are on all beds.
- There is a ‘gym in a bag’, if you are feeling energetic.
- The reserve is home to the Big Five, and so many important conservation projects.
- Interactive cooking and then dining open air under the African stars in the stone-walled boma is also offered.
- Kwandwe is a breeding refuge for blue cranes, the national bird of South Africa.
What you need to know…
- Please note that Kwandwe Uplands Homestead can only be booked for sole-use by you and your loved ones, and not on a room-by-room basis.
- Since you’re in the area also visit Addo Elephant National Park.
- Kwandwe is malaria free and safe for the whole family to visit.
- Uplands Homestead sleeps six people comfortably.
- The Homestead is not wheelchair friendly.
- There is wifi but limited cell phone reception.
- A complimentary child-minding service is offered.
- There are daily, scheduled flights from Cape Town and Johannesburg to Port Elizabeth airport, 160km from Kwandwe. Charter flights can also be arranged on request to Kwandwe’s private air strip in the reserve.
If Kwandwe Uplands Homestead is booked on your selected dates, please browse our extensive selection of luxury safari lodges in the Eastern Cape.
Reviewed and edited by Keri Harvey