I have been lucky enough to do over twenty safari holidays in South Africa, Kenya and Namibia and without doubt the food at River Bend is among the best I have had anywhere. The service from all the team and quality of accommodation also ranks amongst the best I have ever had. However game viewing left a lot to be desired. On the Lodge’s website it states “River Bend Lodge is one of the few game reserves in the Eastern Cape where you can view the Big 5 all in one wilderness area.” I have to question this as Micky, our guide, made it clear that there are no leopards on the property. Another point to note is that although the Lodge is in the Addo National Park it is separated from the main Addo Elephant Reserve by a road and railway track. Within the area covered by the game drives from the Lodge there are, according Micky who did know her stuff, two hundred elephants as opposed to four hundred in the Main Reserve. Even those two hundred elephants were elusive enough although we did have a couple of good sightings of a couple of elephant families. There are only three lions which we did not see, the fact that off road driving is not permitted means that even though the lions are fitted with GPS trackers they are going to be very hard to get close to. There are no cheetahs, or giraffes. We did see rhino, zebra, kudo, mongooses, meerkats, warthogs, vervet monkeys, baboons, leopard tortoises and hartebeest.
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