Renewal, transformation & life at Umlani - Page 17

I was living in Joburg, wore a tie to work each day but had visited Umlani on numerous occasions. I knew my way around the property (well sort of) and I knew the difference between the barrel and a butt of a .458; anyway there was a bit of a crisis and they had a photographic group in camp for the weekend and one of the guides had gone missing, so Marco called and asked if I wouldn’t mind guiding for the weekend.

In the earliest days of Umlani, when it just comprised two huts, and even before that when Marco & Marie ran it out of the old Marula Camp, I was responsible for reservations. In order to ensure that the place was kept busy, I would send my friends down there, or put groups of people together and take them down for a weekend in the bush.

The Umbabat is a nature reserve that borders the Timbavati to the north and forms part of the Greater Kruger National Park.

Our resident film crew has been lucky enough to see 2 female white lion cubs recently. The two cubs are part of the Timbavati pride.

At Umlani we try to show our guests the bush from various perspectives and walking allows us to take a look at a lot of the smaller things that we often drive past on the game drives.