“I can’t believe I am having a pedicure while watching an elephant,” says my wife. The sun is up, and the elephant crossing the Sabie River is a splendid sight below her painted feet. Our suite — one of 23 converted train carriages suspended on a 300m-long bridge above one of the wildest rivers in Africa — has floor-to-ceiling glass windows, which means you can lie in bed or bath watching the greatest show on earth pass 20 metres below.
Kruger Shalati, the five-star repurposed stationary train on the bridge over the Sabie River in South Africa’s Kruger National Park, is one of the most impressive locations I’ve ever experienced. It's also an extraordinary feat of engineering. The swimming pool hovers as if airborne, cantilevered over the edge of the bridge, allowing you to cool down while watching crocs snooze on the rocks and pods of hippos snorting below.
As the United Nations COP16 biodiversity summit in Colombia is happening, with nations pledging millions of dollars instead of the billions needed, let’s reflect on how more than half the species of Kruger are at risk of extinction if global temperatures increase at the current rate. It helps to know one's destination is aligned with the key messages coming out of climate and biodiversity conferences, which include being minimally invasive, and to protect and regenerate nature.
Accordingly, our itinerary has a pleasingly low environmental footprint, which is key when seeking a responsible adventure in Kruger, a game park we have visited many times. For two nights, we “rough it” by glamping at the newly opened Kruger Untamed: Satara Plains Camp, a seasonal pop-up camp which seeks to be completely carbon neutral through its wholly removable structure, zero-food-waste policy, judicious use of water resources in a drought-ravaged region and an all-important green energy policy that will see it being completely diesel generator-free in 2025.
Our final night is at the five-star Shalati, set on the existing railway line, thereby cutting the high emissions that usually come with typical concrete-construction lodges to a minimum. Where five-star typically denotes certain facilities, what seduces us is the top-level attention paid to eco considerations.
Our 1pm rendezvous at Satara, a standard rest camp run by South African National Parks (SANParks), is our ticket to board an open safari vehicle and head east on a gravel road into an undiscovered part of Kruger, closed to the general public. After 40 minutes, we arrive at Satara Plains Camp to be handed a walkie-talkie and instructions on how to stay safe while camping in the bush. “One continuous blast of the alarm means fire in camp; three short blasts means dangerous animal in camp,” they explain — while assuring us there have been no major mishaps.
Satara Plains Camp is a fascinating immersive tourism experiment. The entire camp — comprising a tented central lounge and dining area, two bomas around a fire and 30 two-sleeper tents replete with luxury beds and private bathrooms — was constructed in two months in early 2024. It hosts guests from July to September, then is dismantled in October before being erected again next year. Kruger Untamed: Tshokwane River Camp was launched in a similar format further south in Kruger in 2023.
“The aim with both camps is to create a slightly pampered but authentic bush experience in an uninhabited part of Kruger that leaves no permanent environmental footprint,” Marius Renke, a retired section ranger who helped build Satara Plains Camp, explains. “Currently, we have a generator, but from next year, all the heating at Satara will be solar-powered like at Tshokwane.”
The aim with both camps is to create a slightly pampered but authentic bush experience in an uninhabited part of Kruger that leaves no permanent environmental footprint
Unlike standard Kruger resorts, everything here is environmentally thought-through. The entire structure is removable, meaning there is no need for concrete foundations, which, along with cement, generates almost 10 per cent of total global emissions. Water use is cleverly rationed – you don’t just run the taps; you shower (almost) in the open air using a bucket, and the hand basin is fed from a small transparent urn so you can see how much water you use (and, crucially, have left). And the menus are sensitively tailored to avoid unnecessary food waste.
It doesn't take long for us to sink into the peace and comfort, dozing and reading under a magnificent Natal mahogany before heading out for an evening game drive with Mishack Mkhabela, our philosophic game ranger, who warns us: “You don’t choose what you see in the bush; Mother Nature gives you what you deserve.”
He isn't joking. As the game drive is mostly on roads barred to the public, you can't rely on other vehicles' big cat sightings, so what you see is what you see. After 90 minutes of small game, the last hour brings magic. Sunset drinks are at Gudzani Dam with a herd of elephants, and on the way back, we come across leopards and hyenas on the road. We are the only humans, so the stress on the animals is minimal, unlike other parts of Kruger that are notorious for traffic jams.
To have big cats all to yourself in Kruger is rare, but that is what new initiatives such as Kruger Untamed are all about. It used to be that less than six per cent of Kruger was visible to the public through the road network, but with more private concessions opening up, it is now up to 10 per cent — still a remarkably low number. The South African owners of Kruger Untamed, Motsamayi Tourism Group, have paid a concession fee to SANParks that will allow them to operate here for nine years. They also have a policy of employing Indigenous people from local communities — Mishack is from Justicia, a village near Kruger – creating desperately needed jobs where the official unemployment rate is 33.5 per cent; unofficially, much higher.
The hot shower under the stars that night is memorable (in a different way from the chemical pump toilet). Over the next two days, we see herds of buffalo, a cheetah stalking game, warded off by half a dozen bossy, fearless giraffes. By the time the mercury spikes to 38 centigrade, camping in the heat, even at the tail end of the South African winter, is testing. This extreme August blaze is rare and was unheard of until recently – another example of slow-burn global warming. It also makes you grasp why the site is dismantled over the summer – by the time we transfer to Shalati, we are ready for a step up in luxury.
The Selati railway line, as it was called, has an incredible history, opening in 1912 and running from Komatipoort on the South African-Mozambican border to Newington (now in the Sabi Sands Game Reserve) across the Kruger National Park. In the early days, there were human settlements inside Kruger, but people waiting for the train would get preyed on by lions, so they waited in trees. Train drivers would sometimes see an empty platform and keep going, leaving them hiding in the trees for days until the next train – so they started lighting fires to alert the drivers to stop. Eventually, a nine-day tour was established from Johannesburg to Mozambique, with the train spending a night on the bridge, now named Shalati.
Kruger Untamed and Kruger Shalati show this sprawling game reserve in an entirely new way, at a price somewhere between the cheaper SANParks offering and the can-be-extortionate private lodges. Both make you feel you have gone private without going over the top, and each pays close attention to the environment – sourcing food locally, sparing in their water use, and employing and training people from nearby communities. These virtues should be non-negotiable these days, of course. Eating under the stars at Satara Plains Camp while listening to the call of the pearl-spotted owlet, my wife reflects that there is nothing more relaxing than sitting around a boma in the velvet night, listening to the crackle of fire and the chatter of people. “Nothing more perhaps than that spectacular pedicure.”
HOW TO BOOK
Kruger Untamed Satara Plains Camp
Room rates for a double/twin sharing: £420 (R9,500) per person per night, inclusive of three meals a day, house beverages and two bush activities (game drives or bush walks)
Kruger Shalati — The Train on the Bridge
Room rates for a carriage double/twin sharing: £560 (R12,950) per person per night, inclusive of all meals, beverages, mini-bar and two game drives, plus transfers to and from Skukuza Airport
NEAREST AIRPORTS
Skukuza or Hoedspruit (reasonably priced transfers available to both from O.R. Tambo International in Johannesburg)
