Author Archives: Niel Pienaar

2026 wasted absolutely no time getting on with things. No gentle warm-up. No polite handshake. Just straight out the gate with sightings so good they feel suspicious, like the bush is setting us up for something later in the year. Lions, cheetahs, leopards — all present, all accounted for, and all behaving as though they’ve…

A year in review. As the year edges closer to its final curtain call, it felt appropriate to look back at the moments — and more specifically, the stories — that shaped it. In short, what made this year what it was. I firmly believe that we, as humans, are nothing more than a collection…

“From all of us at Buffalo Thorn Lodge, we’d like to wish you a wonderful festive season.”

Where Summer Arrives With Buckets, Buckets, and… More Buckets November has been wet. Not gentle, romantic, drizzle-on-your-window wet — no, no. This year the rainy season arrived like an overenthusiastic stagehand who misread the script and dumped the entire water tank at once. We’ve had soggy game drives, roads doing their best impression of temporary rivers,…

The History and the Mountains Edition October, as it turns out, wasn’t content just being spring. It arrived wearing summer’s jacket, kicked down the door, and demanded everyone turn their aircon on immediately. The buffalo are back, the cheetahs have returned to Black Rhino, and the rains have made a rather theatrical entrance — the…

This month, Mother Nature decided to skip the pleasantries entirely. One day it was 10 degrees, the next it was 31. No gentle easing into spring, just a full slap in the face of summer. It’s hot, it’s dry, it’s windy — which of course means fire season has arrived. The park staff are running around like…