Manyeleti

The Manyeleti Private Game reserve is situated in the Limpopo province of South Africa.

The reserve borders the Kruger National Park to the Eastern side, the Timbavati Reserve on the Northern side and the Sabi Sand reserve on the Southern side, and falls into the Southern/central region of the Greater Kruger park biosphere.

The size of the reserve is 27000 hectares. (64800 acres).

 

As one can see on the Manyeleti reserve map above, there are only two commercially operated lodges based in the Manyeleti (Honeyguide Tented Safari Camps & Tintswalo Safari Lodge). With a maximum of 8 safari vehicles traversing the reserve, each vehicle will have on average 2937 hectares to themselves making this one of the lowest vehicle density private reserves in the greater Kruger Park region.
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The area has a subtropical climate which lends to warm rainy summers and a dry cooler winter. The main months of rain would be October through to March. The average rainfall for the region would be + – 500 millimeters a year.

The Manyeleti reserve is made up of two distinct types of Ecozones. The underlying rock types determine the nature of the soil that breaks down from them.

 

The Northern part of the reserve is based on the Thorn Veld ecozone which in broad terms outline the younger surface of dark brown loams derived from the basalt.

Typically one would find such tree species as Knobthorn trees, Transvaal Saffron, Large Leaved rock figs. Red Bushwillow, Round leaved-Teak, Marula, Jacket-plum, Russet Bushwillow, Tree Wisteria, Umbrella thorn, Weeping wattle and Zebrawood.

Due to the soil types (Gabbro) this region abounds with sweet grasses which are highly edible for all the grazers.

Predators found in the Thornveld region would be Lion, Cheetah, Hyena, Wild dog, Leopard and Black backed Jackal. Browsers found in the region would be Kudu, Giraffe, Impala and Duiker, Bushbuck, Kudu and Nyala.

Grazers would be Wildebeest, Zebra, White Rhino, Waterbuck and large herds of Buffalo are common on this soil type due to the abundance of quality grazing.

Uncommon sightings would be Black Rhino and Sable antelope.