The final stop before heading back to Botswana was Amathunzi Nature Reserve. A private reserve approximately 1.5 hours northeast of Cape Town, Amathunzi is located just outside the town of Robertson, which is yet another wine region of the Western Cape. We were seven people and therefore rented out the whole lodge, complete with private huts, and the entire shared living and dining spaces, kitchen, pool area and braai pit. It made for a lovely way to spend New Year’s Eve, featuring sun-downers as the sun set over the mountains with giraffe lazily strolling past. A couple of hours of playing Cards Against Humanity later that evening ruined any innocence and maturity that we had otherwise displayed earlier.
Amathunzi is not a large, open park with your big cats, elephant and rhino etc. Instead it has a smaller variety of herbivores including eland, gemsbok, zebra, giraffe and a particular grey antelope that I’m still trying to identify…seriously I cannot work out for the life of me what it is! Many of the animals are hand-reared and have lost all timidity around people, making it a lovely treat to be able to approach so closely. A few of the zebra can even be hand-fed.
We also took a day to explore a couple of the wine farms closer to town. The highlight was Graham Beck, arguably the nicest (and largest) producer of sparkling wines in the country. Set in a grand new facility, tasting in the late morning set a good benchmark and abundant source for the continued bubble drinking for the remainder of the day.
The natural light in the morning, afternoon and at dusk is brilliant, not too distant from the fading Botswana sun, which paints a bronze overlay across everything (and everyone) it touches. The vegetation, being a dazzling display of diversity featuring an overlap of the Karoo, fynbos and patches of acacia, only accentuates the effect. It was truly a magnificent way to finish two enjoyable weeks on the road in South Africa.
