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Kwandwe Game Reserve travel info Today, thousands of animals including lion, black and white rhino, buffalo and elephant roam this diverse and fascinating reserve.
Kwandwe aptly means 'Place of the Blue Crane' (South Africa’s highly endangered national bird) and is home to a population of these rare birds. It offers an exceptional safari experience in a region steeped in history and culture. The Great Fish River was a hotly contested border during the Frontier Wars of 1779 to 1878 between the Xhosa nation, Dutch farmers and the 1820 Settlers from England. Kwandwe’s reception building is a Frontier War-era fortified homestead, and the Reserve boasts its own intimate chapel.
Kwandwe is a biodiversity ‘hotspot’ with six of South Africa’s seven biomes converging in this region of the Eastern Cape. The bushclump savanna-thicket dominates on flat terrain and north-facing slopes with euphorbia, euclea, schotia, carissa and three species of tall aloe abundant. Tall succulent-thicket grows on steeper south-facing slopes with tall river euphorbia, honey euphorbia and Cape candelabra growing alongside sneezewood and other trees. Riverine thicket forms a narrow band along the Great Fish River, with Cape bushwillow, karee and sweet thorn dominant trees. Grassy dwarf-shrubland is an open habitat of sparse tussock grasses and stunted shrubs. The level of the Great Fish River fluctuates markedly, such that broad sand bars are exposed or covered. From June to August, the Reserve boasts a spectacular display of winter flowering aloes.
Wildlife
You should see: black & white rhino, hippo, springbok, kudu, oryx (gemsbok), red hartebeest, eland, bushbuck, Cape grysbok
You may see: aardwolf, aardvark, bat-eared fox, black-backed jackal, Cape fox, caracal, suricate (meerkat), Rock hyrax, red rock-rabbit, elephant-shrew
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