I have ben out of touch in the safari parks of eastern South Africa and enjoying it so much and getting up at 5am for game drives and going to bed at 11pm after them in the evening that I have not had a chance to email you. Our first park was THORNYBUSH PRIVATE RESERVE about an hour east of Hoedspruit (pronounced hode-sprite) airport. In this reserve are numerous lodges, but unquestionably one of the most luxurious elite and not 5-star, but 55-star places is ROYAL MALEWANE ('e' is silent).
Of course, to eat here, you must stay in one of the less than a dozen suites that start at $1000+ per person per night based on double occupancy. The prices include almost everything except the spa, which means 2 game drives daily, tons of food, all alcohol and more.
We arrived just after lunch and sat right down over the water hole as nyala, kudu and more joined us for lunch (they were below). The lunch was multi-course, but we had eaten so much that day, we chose only the starter of SALAD COMPOSEE of POTATO & FENNEL CAKE, Scottish SMOKED SALMON, Mozambiquen PRAWN, with White Wine and Fennel Sauce, The sauce was not too fennelly and was rich and creamy and divine. It was mostly the cake that was the body of the "salad" and the salmon (Scottish, instead of the more common local Smoked Salmon Trout from Franschhoek, which is much milder) was as fresh as could be despite our location. The CHARDONNAY was a truly intense vanilla BOUCHARD FINLAYSON Crocodile's Lair 2005 from Kaaimangat in Overberg near the coast in Hermanus where we were a week before.
I didn't mention that I ended up in the Presidential Suite where Elton John, amongst others, stays for a week each year. Now you know where the Lion King came from! The price is almost $7000/night but includes private game drives and spa treatments as well as a chef and butler! Dinner was at the main building by the fire and we had a starter of KAFTI (phyllo wrapped) PRAWNS on a Bed of Avocado & Tomato TIan with Thai Curry Sauce. The dish used the amazing local avocados and had a very mild Thai sauce with a bit of cream for body. The Kafti was almost like a shrimp cake in phyllo.
CHUNKY Mushroom Soup was thick, rich and aromatic and garnished with BLUE CHEESE TOAST. The local blues are some of the best I have had in the world and oh so mild.
We drank HOOPENBURG CABERNET SAUVIGNON 2005 from Stellenbosch that was divine (the wines are all included unless you choose from the private cellars), and we were given champagne on arrival and in our suites with no limit.
The main course was a buffet of roasted meats:
Marinated Leg of Lamb (the excellent Karoo one gets here)
Loin of Ostrich with coarse grained homemade mustard
Lemon & Herb or Peri-Peri Spatchcock Chicken
Roast Butternut Squash with Cinnamon & HOney
Sweet Potatoes (they are white here) with Sweet Chili (locals spell it "chilli") sauce
Roasted Potato Wedges
Veggies
Greek Salad
After tasting virtually every item I could not even consider dessert. On a side note, for our earlier (yes, we had two) lunch that day in Jo'berg Airport changing planes we stopped at South Africa's premier fast food place NANDO's and had a small roasted PERI-PERI chicken and it was divine as were the spicy potato wedges!!
The Royal Malewane easily surpassed this and the potatoes were million- times divine. All-in-all a great night even if buffet.
