Rhino Ridge Safari Lodge

With glass sliding doors opening onto expansive bushveld views, these spacious Safari Rooms are designed to bring the outdoors in. The Safari Rooms are designed in pairs, comprising a common entrance lobby leading off to two separate bedrooms. Each bedroom has a private shower room that opens out onto a small viewing deck. The bedrooms feature glass sliding doors that open onto a screened deck, ensuring complete privacy from guests in the neighbouring room.

The Safari Room features a private deck, double vanity, separate toilet, air conditioning, overhead fans, mini bar, safe, hairdryer, and tea and coffee making facilities.

These interconnected, commodious rooms are ideal for families travelling with children or two couples travelling together. The two rooms comprise of two separate bedrooms each with its own ensuite shower. Although these rooms are side by side, they provide guests with maximum privacy while parents have peace of mind knowing their children are in the next bedroom. The rooms are open-plan and spacious, featuring glass sliding doors that open onto the viewing deck where sub-tropical woodland vistas bring the sights and sounds of an authentic African experience. The decks are built to ensure that guests are able to enjoy the views in total privacy from their neighbours.

The Safari Family Rooms have a private deck, double vanity, separate toilet, air conditioning, overhead fans, mini bar, safe, hairdryer, and tea and coffee making facilities.

These villas feature an open plan design with a lounge area, cosy fireplace, and a large viewing deck that looks out onto the expansive bushveld. The Luxury Bush Villas showcase a spacious, open-plan layout with a lounge area, open fireplace, and an opulent viewing deck. The large bathrooms boast rain showers that open onto the magnificent outdoors and the villas feature luxurious bathtubs with wide windows that look directly onto the wild African flora.

All rooms have a private deck, double vanity, separate toilet, air conditioning, overhead fans, mini bar, mosquito nets, safe, hairdryer, and tea and coffee making facilities.

These expansive, secluded villas come with sweeping views of the bushveld, the Honeymoon Villas boast a private plunge pool, offering a setting you’ll fall in love with. The Honeymoon Villas enjoy a spacious, open plan bedroom and bathroom with bath, double vanity, separate shower and toilet. The open fireplace is perfect for cosying up on cool winter nights. These dreamy villas have private plunge pools set on an elevated deck with spectacular views of Africa’s ecoregion below. The Honeymoon Villas offer total seclusion and privacy, and the king-size four-poster bed is romantically draped with dreamy white mosquito nets.

All rooms have a private deck, double vanity, separate toilet, air conditioning, overhead fans, mini bar, mosquito nets, safe, hairdryer, and tea and coffee making facilities.

Guests staying at Rhino Ridge Safari Lodge can look forward to three delicious meals each day, as well as high tea each afternoon. Breakfast consists of a continental buffet with hot food made to order from 7 am to 11 am. Dinners are served in the evenings and can be enjoyed out on the viewing deck around a roaring fire, or in the warmly lit dining room, with incredible views from the floor to ceiling windows. Rhino Ridge Safari Lodge’s expert chefs craft artistic dishes that look almost too good to eat. Enjoy comforting classic meals inspired by local flavours and unique twists.

Journey across the wilderness from the comfort of a specially designed 4×4 safari vehicle with Rhino Ridge Lodge’s professional guides, who will help you find your favourite animals, including the legendary Big 5 and Hluhluwe iMfolozi’s white rhinos. The guides will be able to teach you about each species, identify spots where the animals are most likely to be found, and teach guests about the local flora and fauna and how the ecosystem supports itself.

Venture out into the African Bush and explore the wilderness at a pace where every detail, track, plant and insect can be admired. Look out for the smaller species that often go unnoticed during drives and sneak up to animals without the disruptive sound of an engine to startle them away. Guests can enjoy a 3-4 hour walk across the plains and watch the local wildlife acting naturally in its natural habitat. This activity is not available for children under the age of 14.

Enjoy a guided walk through the incredible riverine gorge that lies below the camp. Guests can marvel at the stunning birdlife and beautiful plants, with no Big 5 presence, making this area safe for children aged 10 and older. Explore the natural setting and immerse yourself in the wonders of the wilderness.

Visit the local Mpembeni Community and meet people from this rural part of South Africa. Visitors will be able to learn about a different way of living and discover what it is like to live in Zulu and be part of this community.

The Centenary Centre is a wildlife-holding centre where rhinos and antelopes are held when travelling to new homes where they can be better protected. Guests can view the amazing animals and learn more about the conservation efforts at iMfolozi by taking a trip to the attached museum and information centre. Afterwards, take a look at the amazing craft market and bring back gifts for your loved ones at home.

Visit the Nkosi Family Home with your safari guide who will stay with you during your stay, and experience a day in the life of a local community member. Help with daily tasks such as basket weaving, collecting thatching grass and wood and guiding livestock home before it gets dark. You will also have the chance to meet local people such as crafters and the traditional healer or sangoma. In the evening, gather around an open fire and enjoy swapping stories and exchanging questions over Zulu beer. After a night in your hut, you will wake to a traditional maize meal porridge and help with the morning chores before returning to the lodge.

Rhino Ridge Safari Lodge is part of Isibindi Africa Lodges, founded by Brett and Paige Gehren who have both been working to conserve the wildlife and communities of South Africa’s protected wilderness for over 25 years. By working alongside community members, Isibindi Africa Lodges is working ‘to create a human fence between our wilderness areas and neighbouring communities so that the flow of benefits to these communities motivates them to protect these resources.’

By demonstrating the positive impacts of conservation with tangible results, neighbouring communities are motivated to assist in conservation efforts that will help protect the land, natural resources and wildlife. Guests are automatically helping to support a range of community projects when staying with Rhino Ridge Safari Lodge, which go on to empower people and improve their day-to-day lives.

In response to the lockdowns and travel restrictions during the Covid-19 pandemic, the Isibindi Foundation launched a huge feeding programme in the Mpembeni and Hluhluwe communities to support vulnerable homes with elderly/young children and low incomes. Food rations including potatoes, maize meal, beans and cooking oil were distributed to these homes to ensure that thousands of people would remain fed while the community funding raised by tourism was not available.

Masks and information sheets were handed out in Zulu, and working in partnership with the Mpembeni Trust the Isibindi Foundation established a mask-making project using lodge sheets for material. These masks were then given out to the community to help protect them from the virus.

Most of the construction team who built the lodge were from the local community and were able to learn new skills as part of this process, giving them the chance to seek similar roles afterwards.  ‘Isibindi Africa Lodges believe that this has played a large role in the community feeling real ownership in the project.’

A lot of people who worked in building the lodge then went on to be trained as operations staff and were able to gain more skills to help them progress in their careers. ‘Approximately 50% of our employees were previously unemployed and had no previous work experience.’

Rhino Ridge Safari Lodge has created two water points for the local community to collect water at. This is important as the local municipality ‘is unreliable’ and before this was the only water supply in the area.

‘To date, Rhino Ridge Safari Lodge has spent R36 000.00 repairing pumps and water pipes supplying the Mpembeni community on behalf of the municipality.’

Rhino Ridge Safari Lodge is a joint venture between the National Empowerment Fund and the Mphembi Community, which owns the land where the lodge was built. The lodge has focused on hiring people from the local community, who now make up 97% of the lodge staff and have been trained to work in various departments.

‘In March 2019, Rhino Ridge Safari Lodge repainted and restored the Tribal Authority building in Mpembeni. The Tribal Authority is the heart of the community where important decisions are made and hence holds a place of pride.’

Rhino Ridge Safari Lodge supplies indigenous fruit trees which the team plant at the Mpembeni school and clinic to celebrate Arbor Day.

Rhino Ridge Safari Lodge sources their energy from clean and renewable sources. 186 solar panels have been fitted at the lodge, providing 70% of the power needed to run the lodge. They also use energy-efficient bulbs and a card system that turns off air-conditioning when guests are not using their rooms.

Rhino Ridge Safari Lodge supports the anti-poaching initiatives within the Hluhluwe iMfolozi Park, and have donated large quantities of camping equipment, tyres for vehicles, tracking equipment, night-vision goggles and GPS equipment in order to help with the crucial work that the anti-poaching teams do. Rhino Ridge has also donated ‘prizes to the value of R150 000.00 for anti-rhino poaching campaigns throughout the country.’

The lodge also funded and hosted a rhino anti-poaching workshop in 2018 which was led by Tim Parker, a renowned anti-poaching consultant from Hoedspruit, and attended by the head of Ezemvelo anti-poaching unit. The workshop helped communicate the guidelines for both rangers and staff. Guests at Rhino Ridge help support the anti-poaching teams with the entrance fees they pay, and Rhino Ridge is working to raise awareness on conservation and anti-poaching initiatives within the Park.

Rhino Ridge Safari Lodge has developed its own supply chain of recycling to allow them to recycle more materials and benefit the local community. The lodge separates its waste into different categories such as glass, tin, paper/cardboard, plastic and wet waste. The wet waste is made up of food scraps and this is taken to a local farmer to feed his pigs twice a week. Glass, tin and paper/cardboard is offered to the local community where it is taken to be recycled and local people are able to receive any profits from the recycling stations.

Rhino Ridge is also working to reduce the amount of plastic used at the lodge, and are no longer using plastic straws, packaging, bin liners, shower caps, sugar sachets or bottles, with eco-friendly alternatives in place to reduce the amount of plastic waste.

Rhino Ridge Safari Lodge is working to reduce its water consumption. To achieve this, towels are not changed daily unless necessary, and guests use biodegradable napkins rather than face towels. Rainwater is collected from the kitchen roof and used for general cleaning and washing vehicles, and the indigenous gardens do not require extra water. Guests are also asked to help with this initiative by being mindful of taking long showers.

Rhino Ridge Safari Lodge and Isibindi Africa Trails support environmental clubs in the Mpembeni Schools. In 2018, the lodge took 150 children on a guided tour of the game reserve, allowing them to learn about the animals and plant life in their local area. Afterwards, the children were able to attend the conference centre and participate in educational talks and interactive learning sessions. This encourages local people to protect the wildlife around them and deters people from turning to poaching our wildlife from poaching.

Along with Ezemvelo KZN wildlife and SAN parks, Rhino Ridge has a strict no-off road policy to reduce the damage that vehicles can have on the soil, animal habitats and vegetation within National Parks. Since the lodge opened in March 2015, Rhino Ridge has been working to restore the vegetation which was impacted during construction. They also remove invasive alien plant species that can cause soil erosion and take too much water, replacing them with indigenous trees instead.