We bring the latest news from our friends at Royal Madikwe Lodge in Greater Madikwe, South Africa.

We would like to take this opportunity to introduce Royal Madikwe’s resident Klipspringer – “Bokkie”. This young male antelope has been spending much of his time within Royal’s fences and around the water hole, but never venturing further than that. The lodge seems to bring him comfort and on one particular day, he made himself quite at home as he came strolling through the main lodge where he exited through the sliding doors, walked out onto the ledge above the breakfast buffet, posed for a few seconds before leaping onto the deck next to them and then onto the ground where he continued to graze as if this was the most normal thing for a dashing young Klipspringer to do!

After much laughter, we thought it would be great to share this with you and if you have been to Royal, you may have seen little Bokkie around the lodge, if not, we welcome you to come and meet him at Royal Madikwe.

Dining with Madikwe’s African Elephants seems to have been a regular occurrence in June! Massive herds of these friendly giants pass the lodge almost daily to have a drink at the Royal water hole situated right in front of the lodge.

Decadent meals, created by our Chef – Amos Ncube – have been a delight, with some lavish dishes and new creations!

There have been incredible sightings this month and a lot of action with the shifting of male lion coalitions into the Royal Area. Royal Madikwe has been in the middle of the change. The Local territorial Male Lion – Kgala- who is a massive Kalahari male lion, is being pushed out by the Naledi brothers aged around 8 years old.

In the past few weeks there have been numerous groupings of female lions around Royal Madikwe Lodge and this has definitely been the reason for this shifting of territories. Royal have been very fortunate to have one of the remaining waterholes in the park that still has water and this has lead to a significant amount of action around the lodge. The local male leopard has been a regular sighting from the lodge balcony, lions everywhere, wild dogs have killed twice this month at the Waterhole and we still get great action from the dogs who love to hunt around the Royal Lodge Game Fence.

For more information about Royal Madikwe Lodge, or for further advice about travel to South Africa, please contact our Africa experts.

Thanks for reading

Illona Cross, Tanzania

Author: Illona Cross