Timbavati Game Reserve

About Timbavati Game Reserve

The Timbavati Private Game Reserve lies in the western region of the Kruger National Park, north of Sabi Sands Private Game Reserve, the borders between all of them unfenced allowing greater freedom of access to wild life.

Did you know? Led by an armed, experienced professional safari guide and a tracker, it does not come better than a wildlife walking safari through the greater Kruger National Park. With up to 8 people per walking trail, begin at dawn and head into the wild where you could spot any of the Big 5.

This is typical lowveld terrain and home to the big 5, not least because the huge tracts of land that make up the Timbavati Game Reserve have only ever been very lightly inhabited and have thus remain largely unspoilt and wild. The Game Reserve has never had to resort to restocking its wild life.

The other famous fact about the Timbavati is its association with the white lions, known as the 'white lions of Timbavati'. Timbavati in ancient Sangaan means 'the place where something sacred came down to earth from the heavens' and refers to these genetically rare specimens that are not albino lions but are actually listed as a sub species of lion.

Chris McBride first spotted two white lion cubs in the Timbavati Reserve back in 1975 and today there is a whole pride of white lions in the greater Timbavati area. People come from all over the world to spot them, and they're the stuff of legends.

The number of lodges (see accommodation in Timbavati here) within the Timbavati remain few in a bid to keep the level of game drive vehicles low and the number of visitors to a minimum, thus sustaining the amount of game in the park, which is one of the best. You can hope to see elephant, cheetah, buffalo, rhino, over 360 bird species, 79 reptiles and over 80 species of tree.

Timbavati is in turn divided into smaller private game reserves that include Motswari, Ngala and Umlani Game Reserves. It lies but five or six hours' drive from Johannesburg and normal sedans can reach all of the lodges in the Timbavati reserve.