Great service and people. Our stay experience was really excellent and found their info to be very informative

River Bend was the highlight of a three week trip from Cape Town to Port Elizabeth. I should like to commend all the staff for their freindliness and competence, especially Stef Marais and Joe Pringle who were so kind to my elderly mother. We post however a plea for a new vehicle for Joe -- his old 4x4 is clapped out and he has to wrestle with the gears. When can there be an ecologically more friendly electric vehicle? Keep up your excellent conservation work.

RiverBend Lodge deserves every one of its five TGCSA stars and must surely give the better known Private Game Lodges of Kruger pause for thought. If 'personal' describes best what you truly value when considering your choice of Bushveld experience, RiverBend will not disappoint. The service is stellar, from a team whose casual ability to delight the guest is almost unnerving. The Lodge is unashamedly Colonial, our honeymoon suite tastefully furnished and finished, with subtle reminders of the African bush provided by beautifully sketched pictures of local fauna. An early morning wake up call and a welcome coffee from our personal guide preceded a three hour morning game drive, followed by breakfast served on the Lodge veranda overlooking a waterhole, where we recalled morning sights of elephant, lion, rhino and zebra within RiverBend's Nyati Concession and the surrounding Addo Park. After a leisurely a'la carte lunch, viewings took place again mid afternoon, visiting RiverBend's private Intsomi Reserve, where we spotted giraffe, sable and bontebok, species not seen in the Addo according to our guide Darlington, whose passion and love for the Bushveld proved both informative and infectious and (I'm glad to say) spilled over into his generously mixed G&T's, which were enjoyed as we watched the sun set slowly behind undulating hills of acacia. Gastronomes will be rather pleased with themselves at the Lodge. Chef Christopher Whitham's seven-course dinner menu displays a technical ability and balance of african-mediterranean fusion that is quite simply breathtaking and certainly shouldn't be evident in someone of his early years. Believe me, his is some of the best food to be had in SA. Together with a wine list that champions all that is good about the great South African secret, we found ourselves back on our veranda, silly grinned and satiated, gazing up at a Milky Way that stretched out through a spectacular glittering blanket of African night sky. It really doesn't get much better than this.

An accomplished team manages to apparently effortlessly cater for their guests' every need. Not only is the accommodation luxurious and the food a culinary masterpiece but their enthusiasm and knowledge of Addo National Park spills over. The game drives, with knowledgeable guides in high open vehicles,were both fun and informative. We were lucky enough to be there during a wet spell and we saw, through both their eyes and our own, the arid terrain come to life. During four days we saw 21 species of mammal, including lion, elephant, rhino and buffalo, countless birds and lots of bottles of nice wine. A special experience to which we hope to return.