meet the matriarchs of africa who have security guards as they rewild

It’s always likely that you’ll see Africa’s wildlife on safari, but experiencing Camp Jabulani guarantees elephants, with their own rescue story.

As the sun sets an orange filter over the African savannah, the silhouette of bushveld is dark, but there’s no fear. Until some darkness to the left starts to move. Or, more accurately, plod.

There’s one elephant, no wait – three. Oh, and a baby. And a matriarch. They just keep coming, emerging beside a lake and rounding it until the full herd is in view, totaling 15.

It’s mesmerising. We were set up in camper chairs and a long table of sundowner drinks and snacks, now neglected in favour of this overwhelming spectacle. The instinct is to get as close as possible, despite how thunderous the pachyderms are.

Still, it’s as safe as it can be in this context. These are not wild elephants, but rather a motley and welcoming herd of orphaned and formerly captive elephants at Camp Jabulani, who are slowly being transitioned into the wild.

While you’ll never walk away from an African safari without seeing at least one of the big five, at Camp Jabulani at least you know it’s a sure thing. Not only that, at neighbouring Hoedspruit Endangered Species Centre (HESC), the rarer sightings are all there to be had, and are no lesser for the fact that they are in enclosures. It’s a reality that these animals need some level of walled protection, as they have been previously captured or orphaned. While it’s always preferable for them to be in the wild, but there is a need for these centres, especially for the propagation of at-risk species.

Of the fifteen elephants here, five of the babies were born here. The others were all rescues, mostly from a Zimbabwe elephant riding operation. Sebakwe is the handsome male, who always shepherds the herd and walks at the back of the procession, as the dominant males are want to do in their herds. Sebakwe is good looking enough to be a model, and he is the face and mascot of the delicious South African liquor Amarula, made from the Marula fruit. More than that, he is also a generous father figure. The guides report that he pulls down trees for feeding, but doesn’t indulge himself, instead letting the mothers and calves feed.

The namesake of this luxury safari lodge, Jabulani, was a baby orphan at four months old, and was hand-raised by the owner of Camp Jabulani and founder of HESC, Lente Roode. But it is the matriarch of the herd who first accepted Jabulani. The team attempted to reassimilate Jabulani with the wild elephant herds, but they all rejected him. Matriarch Tokwe accepted the baby, draping her trunk over his head and into his mouth. Before that, the owners were concerned that Jabulani would never be accepted by other elephants. Each and every elephant here has a story and personality, and it’s a joy to hear their quirks of character over sundowners with the guides. Mambo is the naughty one, a cheeky adolescent boy. He’s prone to taking shortcuts and throwing the elephant trumpeting version of a tantrum. Apparently the oldest female elephant should be the matriarch, but in this herd, she’s not. She gets scared easily and has no ability to lead, the guides say, she runs from her own poo, they add. 

It’s very much a family here. And that trickles through to Camp Jabulani itself, with its villas and suites all offering stand-alone immersion in the African bush. The meandering path starts with a suspension bridge to the accommodation side. The rooms feel like home, and are appointed to feel that way. Dark wood and natural barks sit by motifs of elephants, everywhere. From the paintings to the photos and the books, the passion for wildlife is writ. There are also personal photos of the family who own Camp Jabulani and HESC.

It’s everything you need to feel beyond comfortable. Until the growl and snarl of lions wake you up at 3am. There was a kill mere metres from the lodge, and the sound is powerful enough to make you question yourself in your very safe surrounds. It’s illogical but despite how cosy and safe that four-poster bed is, no one could hear those lions and not have their skin prickle. It’s a biological impulse and it makes the experience of staying at Camp Jabulani the more alive.

Our guide assures us the next day that while the lions were close, they cannot get in to the grounds where the accommodation quarters are. For all those that find that disappointing, the group opts for a walking safari to live life like a predator on feet, not wheels. Predator or prey: on a walking safari you’re never quite sure. The guides sling over their rifles and we take to crunching the gravel roadways. Plenty of the wildlife prefer traveling along the roads – hyenas and lions both often spotted along the roads.

We approach the Jabulani wild elephant herd and stand in a thicket far enough to observe undisturbed. They munch on shoots and leaves and branches, come a little closer to our sentinel position and then creep back. You could never be so close to a wild elephant herd, the guides say, so this is an experience you could only have at Camp Jabulani as the herd transitions from semi-captive to semi-wild: as wild as is possible.

Elephants are a 60-year commitment, and Camp Jabulani is feeling their way through the transition. Currently there are two guards that look after the herd and follow them around as they roam in the wild, to ensure that other wild elephants don’t kill them. The Camp says they don't want to breed with elephants: they want to save room for the orphaned and abandoned. Wild elephants will never adopt but adopted elephants will take the orphans.

This conservation attitude is also found at the Hoedspruit Endangered Species Centre. You take the same vehicle to the park, where endangered species roam on open enclosures. It means all those animals you may not have spotted are there for you to bear witness to. There is even a baby leopard rescue. Sadly, because he had to interact with humans for food or die, he cannot be released into the wild as he now associates humans with food and would kill, the guides tell us. 

Having never seen leopards in the wild, the few at HESC put on quite the display, posing and peacocking on one of the highest branches of their enclosure. Another sight that is rare on safari is that of a king cheetah – a gene mutation means that they have darker coat colourings and are all the more majestic for it, with a thick black spine stripe and darker spots. HESC is involved in the breeding program, as the centre first began life as a cheetah conservation centre.

One of the unexpected highlights of the centre is the vulture feeding. A square field is market out with layers of white bones. A truck dumps some foul-smelling carcasses and suddenly, vultures from each point of the compass flock in. Look overhead and it’s hypnotic. Combine that with the sensory overload of crunching bones, squawking, feather flying and the smell of the food and you have an Africa memory that won’t soon be forgotten.  

The property also supports research, and on our walking safari we meet a university student studying the levels of stress between the Jabulani rescue elephant herd and the wild elephants. It will be fascinating to see if the rescue herd, which has rarely experienced hunger or migration, is more or less stressed than the wild population.

I offer to assist in this noble scientific pursuit. Until I’m handed a glove. Sanitation first, because the way we are testing is by collecting a sample of warm elephant dung.  

From elephants blocking sunset to their fresh dung the next morning, there’s few other places in South Africa where you can combine an intimacy with elephants and endangered species as well as have the usual morning and evening safari drives and sightings, rewarded with sightings of hyenas, black and white rhino, wild elephants, lion bachelors, lionesses and cubs as well as zebras, giraffe, wildebeest and warthogs. 

The experiences of a mere two days at Camp Jabulani ends up seared in your consciousness, as searing as staring into that sunset which those fifteen elephants shadowed, creating a silhouette spectacle better than any eclipse.