4 Best Sights in The Eastern Cape, South Africa

Tucked away in the Eastern Cape, near the historic university "city" of Makhanda (formerly known as Grahamstown, and now increasingly run down), Kwandwe is a conservation triumph as more than 55,000 acres of various vegetation types and scenic diversity, including rocky outcrops, great plains, thorn thickets, forests, desert scrub, and the Great Fish River were just ravaged farmland and goat-ridden semidesert two decades ago. Today it's home to more than 7,000 mammals, including the Big Five and the elusive black rhino, and it's likely you'll see fauna you don't always see elsewhere, such as black wildebeest, bat-eared foxes, and the endangered blue crane (Kwandwe means "place of the blue crane" in isiXhosa). If you spend more than a couple of nights here, you'll likely see a huge and impressive array of animals, including leopards, lions, and herds of elephants marching across the terrain. If you come in winter, you'll see one of nature's finest floral displays, when thousands of scarlet, orange, and fiery-red aloes are in bloom, attended by colorful sunbirds. The reserve also has a strong focus on community development, as evinced by the Community Centre and village within the reserve, both of which are worth a visit.

Surrounded by the melancholic beauty of the Great Karoo with its scattered koppies and ridges of flat-topped mountains, Samara is a 67,000-acre private game reserve tucked beneath the Sneeuberg mountain range in the fabled plains of Camdeboo National Park some 45 minutes from the historic town of Graaff-Reinet. Owners Sarah and Mark Tompkins opened the reserve in 2005 with a promise to return former farmland to its natural state—the malaria-free reserve encompasses 11 former farms and is home to a variety of reintroduced species, including cheetah, lion, Cape mountain zebra, white rhino and desert-adapted black rhino, giraffe, black wildebeest, and a variety of antelope; there are also meerkats and aardvarks. By day, it’s a build-your-own-adventure of game drives, picnics atop the lofty heights of Mount Kondoa, and exploring the reserve’s topographical diversity at a civilized pace. Due to the lower density of predators and the sparseness of vegetation, rangers stop the game-viewers often so that guests can experience some of their safari on foot. One of its signature experiences is the opportunity to track a telemetry-collared rehabilitated cheetah and her family, and then get within whispering distance of them. The relatively low density of dangerous game also means this reserve is well-suited to families with children.

Smack in the middle of a citrus-growing and horse-breeding area, Addo Elephant National Park is home to more than 600 elephants, not to mention plenty of buffalo (around 400 of them), black rhino, leopards, spotted hyena, hundreds of kudu and other antelopes, and lions. At present the park has just under 445,000 acres, including two islands, St Croix and Bird, which can be visited as part of tours out of Gqeberha. The most accessible parts of the park are the original, main section and the Colchester, Kabouga, Woody Cape, and Zuurberg sections.

The original section of Addo still holds most of the game and is served by Addo Main Camp. The Colchester section, in the south, which has one SANParks camp, is contiguous with the main area. The scenic Nyathi section is separated from the main section by a road and railway line. Just north of Nyathi is the mountainous Zuurberg section, which doesn't have a large variety of game but is particularly scenic, with fabulous hiking trails and horse trails, and it's where you might glimpse Cape mountain zebra, mountain reedbuck, blue duiker, red rock rabbits, and—if you are extremely fortunate—aardwolf. There are also hippos in the Sundays River, at the base of the Zuurberg range.

You can explore the park in your own vehicle, in which case you need to heed the road signs that claim "dung beetles have right of way." Addo is home to the almost-endemic and extremely rare flightless dung beetle, which can often be seen rolling its unusual incubator across the roads. Watch out for them (they're only about 2 inches long), and watch them: they're fascinating. Instead of driving you could take a night or day game drive with a park ranger in an open vehicle from the main camp. A more adventurous option is to ride a horse among the elephants. Warning: no citrus fruit may be brought into the park, as elephants find it irresistible and can smell it for miles.

If you'd like to glimpse penguins up close, this dedicated seabird rehab facility at the Cape Recife Nature Reserve offers informative small-group tours, on the hour, from 9 am until 2 pm. Guests learn about the habits and behaviors of African penguins, and watch them waddle, hear them squawk, and—during certain hours—see them being fed. The tour also offers insight into the many threats facing these endangered birds. Be sure to schedule time to explore the nature reserve, a coastal conservancy with excellent bird-watching, and a lighthouse built in 1849.