Kwandwe Ecca Lodge

Kwandwe takes its Xhosa name from the blue crane and its reputation from the black rhino. The reserve runs to 30,000 malaria-free hectares along the Great Fish River, and Ecca Lodge puts only six suites on its spekboom hills, spaced so that none overlooks another. They are built in the colours of the ground they stand on, with stone stacked in wire cages and woven grass on the walls, and each has a wraparound deck, a plunge pool and a shower outside, all facing over a valley to an escarpment of shale cliffs. The main lodge looks the same way from its viewing deck, with a stone fire pit beside the dining room and a rim-flow lap pool of its own. That makes seven pools for six suites, so there is always one to spare.

Recommended for families who want a safari on their own clock, and for couples, who get the three Luxury Suites. The other three, the Private Vehicle Suites, sleep two adults and two children and come with a vehicle and a guide of their own, so the dawn drive starts when the children do. Besides the drives there is fishing on the Great Fish River and at Galpin Dam, or, for the keen, a turn with the reserve's ecological team, monitoring its rhino. Children get a menu of their own and a spekboom to plant, and childminders cost nothing if they are booked ahead. They can also make plaster casts of animal tracks, which is as close as anyone needs to get to a rhino's foot.