Two weeks ago, one of our guests asked me how long we had been operating for and when I replied that we had opened the all new Tanda Tula Safari Camp in June 2023, he couldn’t believe it – he said that it felt as if we had been doing this forever. This, of course, is true, as the Tanda Tula team has been offering our unique brand of hospitality for many, many years and only the camp and its interiors are all new. However, it got me to thinking that it is almost a full year since we opened our doors to the all-new Safari Camp, and that now would be a good time to look back and reflect on where we have come from, and how we have managed to remain true to our purpose while evolving to meet the needs of a modernizing safari landscape.
Our journey is infused with history, vision, bravery, frustration, and hilarity. These are some of the stories….
I found the first reference to the name Tanda Tula in a book written by Chris McBride “The White Lions of the Timbavati”. The book was published in 1977 and covered his years in the early 1970’s studying lions and finding the now famous white lions, Temba and Tombi. Towards the end of the book comes the following quote:
“…my father’s neighbour at Vlak, approached me with the idea of turning one of his two camps into a game viewing lodge for small parties of tourists. He asked Charlotte and me to take it over and look after the conversion. This arrangement suited me fine because it enabled us to stay in the area and keep an eye on our lions. The new camp was to be called Tanda Tula….”
The year was 1976, and Tanda Tula became the first commercial operation in the Timbavati Private Nature Reserve that is still in existence today. Back then, the safari industry was not the professional and well-regulated sector that it is today. For an academic researcher to be put in charge of a commercial operation in 2024 would be unheard of. But those were pioneering days and Chris and his wife, Charlotte, set up and ran Tanda Tula for the first year or two. The camp was the old warden’s headquarters and consisted of grass thatched ‘rondavels’, much like the old Kruger Park camps.
As the quote suggests, Chris was probably more interested in “his lions” than he was in tourists. The story goes that when approached by a guest who reported his toilet was blocked, Chris put his pipe (still smoldering!) into his pocket and responded – “Do I look like a bl@?!dy plumber!”.
In the late 1970’s Tanda Tula was run and marketed by Gametrackers – a leading safari operator in those days. I found some old brochures from that time, and it is fascinating to read how the old marketing material for the camp paints a picture of the spirit and atmosphere. The brochure refers to Tanda Tula as a “Rest Camp”, and the part I particularly like says “…And how about people? Well, there aren’t any in our 6000 hectares – except our staff and a few scientists. But, when it comes to looking after our guests, you would think we had an army at our disposal.”. I just love the robust honesty of their marketing tone! Then, there was the visual material of the brochures in the 1970’s and 1980’s… how far we have come!
Also, around that time, Tanda Tula brought in the inimitable Pat Donaldson who ran operations for many years. Pat, who sadly passed away in 2019, is said to have been the founder of the now famous Tanda Tula Bush Breakfast – in his day, though, bread was baked inside a termite mound and the full English breakfast fry up was cooked over coals in makeshift firepits in the riverbed. Pat also raised 3 sons at Tanda Tula, and in typical single dad fashion had to ban one of his sons, Wayne, from driving the Land Rovers in the bush, because he broke the rules, drove too fast, and hit a tree…. Wayne was 9 years old at the time and had been driving for more than a year – typical of that era of a wonderful wild bush life!
For me, a remarkable testimony to the continuity of our operation, since those pioneering days, is that a few of our recently retired team members began their journey as part of the Tanda Tula family in this original version of Tanda Tula, some 48 years ago! People like David Mathebula, brought with them the DNA of a team that has spanned more than 4 decades, bringing us to where we are today. Some even say that without David, none of us would have been able to find any of the pipes or cables put into the ground during the building of the camps all those years ago!
Fast forward to the mid 1990’s and changes in the land ownership structure within the Timbavati Private Nature Reserve saw the need to move the Tanda Tula operation to another property and its current location on the Nlharalumi Riverbed. Faced with the prospect of having to build a new camp in a new location, the decision was made to change the infrastructure into a tented camp, much like the camps that were popular in east Africa at the time. This uniquely styled tented camp served the Tanda Tula brand for the next 25 years, with numerous iterations from thatching the tent structures, to creating built on bathrooms, to a variety of ‘softs’ refurbishments and more.
One of the first management couples of Tanda Tula Safari Camp in the late 1990’s was Alan and Sarah McSmith – many of you will know Alan who has become a well-known doyen of the guiding industry. Both youngsters in those days, he told me a lovely story of décor gone wrong. Someone had decided it would be a good idea to drape a zebra skin over one of the heavy wooden dining tables in the main lounge area of the lodge. One morning the team arrived to find the zebra skin gone, and large gashes in the wooden table. The trackers came to inspect and pieced together a comical scene – that a lioness must have crept into the lounge, identified the zebra skin as a potential quarry and attacked the table running off with the skin and leaving her claw marks in the table as a memento of her visit!
Once again, the constant thread in this story of evolution was the people who make up the Tanda Tula family. Scotch and Smiling both tell stories of how they were part of the team that built the tented version of Tanda Tula Safari Camp. How both of them, unable to speak any English, would run and hide when the first guests arrived just in case someone tried to talk to them! Smiling also explains how Scotch used to sit up at night reading with an English dictionary – when Smiling asked him what on earth he was doing, Scotch told him he planned to be a guide one day, and to do that he needed to be able to speak English. True to his promise, Scotch became one of the first Shangaan guides in the Timbavati in 2003, and today he is one of our senior guides.
Fast forward again to 2021, when we realized that our beloved old-tented camp had reached the end of its usable life. Then began a complete re-think of what a modern safari experience should look like, with a constant reminder of Nina’s mantra of the last 5 years – a safari must be “inspired by Africans, delivered by Africans and co-owned by Africans”.
The design process took many turns with the architect’s team swiftly realizing that no aesthetic decision could be made without operational input on how it would be used, maintained, cleaned, and replaced. After some months, we had visual models to share with the Tanda Tula team. We all gathered in the kitchen for a presentation and, after showing the images, we had a standing ovation from the whole family. This was an affirmation that we were on the right track. Nina’s lasting memory of the day was being approached by Scotch and Glen who both shared with her that we made the team feel safe and secure, and that seeing the new designs gave them confidence for their futures.
In order to effect a new build, the old camp had to be demolished and all materials removed from the reserve. As we dug in and began removing old infrastructure it became apparent why such a fundamental rebuild was needed. Building processes back in the 1990’s were not what they are today, and it was evident that the old tented camp had very much been designed on the “back of a cigarette pack”. We found and removed old french drains, septic tanks, found the odd piece of buried furniture and even an old bath! We also found some deeper foundations indicating an even older dwelling that must have once stood under the trees on the Nlharalumi river.
The building team learned, by necessity, that the environment they were operating in is truly wild. Morning meetings often began with stories of one builder or another having to push their wheelbarrow extra fast as a lion sauntered into camp, or the evening meal being interrupted by hyena, or honey badger, looking for some leftovers. Elephants would come to inspect the build process in the night leaving steaming piles of poop for the builders to puzzle over in the morning. As if that wasn’t enough, the natural world showed its force in February 2023, with floods cutting off access to the camp and the builders having to be ferried food over the raging Nlharalumi river.
I also learned a valuable lesson in personal safety by launching myself off an unfinished deck and damaging my leg in the subsequent fall. As with any accident, it could have been worse, but my somewhat misshapen shin on my left leg is an enduring reminder of the dangers of building sites.
Then came the interiors’ project. Nina has always had a natural flair for interior styling and has confidently overseen all the Tanda Tula softs refurbishments that were undertaken in the past. She took a bold step in departing from the usual “50 shades of beige” seen so often in the safari world. She instead drew inspiration from the rich colours and tones on display all around us in the thick riverine bush in which the camp is immersed. The greens of the silver cluster leaf, deep aubergines of the purple pod cluster leaf and warm golds of the winter grasses are all part of a colour palette that is both welcoming and in harmony with the surrounding bush. Whilst she admits to having had some moments of sheer panic, we are all immensely proud of the final product. The look is both modern and chic, yet inviting and unpretentious at the same time – a rare feat to achieve by anybody’s reckoning, and one that deserves its own blog post, so keep a look out for that in the near future.
Any safari operator will tell you that no lodge building project is ever complete without the frantic chaos that precedes the arrival of your first guests. In this instance, we did not disappoint! My and Dale’s constant cajoling and pressuring of the builder to move faster was met with an equal measure of obstinately meticulous workmanship. For this we can only thank our builder, as they say “the pain endured on the journey is soon forgotten when one is enjoying the quality and beauty of the destination”.
Ten days before opening doors to our first arrivals, the full Tanda Tula team returned home from our temporary 15 months at Tanda Tula Plains Camp. I have to admit I was slightly apprehensive that the grand new infrastructure may bring a formality or distance to our team’s delivery. Of course, I need never have doubted my people as the Tanda Tula family descended on their new camp and took ownership as if they had been operating there for years. To the builders’ surprise, every team member quite simply mucked in and got on with whatever work needed doing in order to get the camp ready. This again is an enduring feature of the spirit of the Tanda Tula family – no one is too precious for any job and everyone approaches their work with an energy and sense of fun that is contagious.
Finally, being true to every clichéd building story in the tourism industry, we really did have the first-hand experience of packing up our tools and sneaking out the back just as guests were arriving to check in!
And so, looking back over the many years of evolution that has formed Tanda Tula, it would be true to say that “as much as we change… so much we stay the same”. Our location, buildings and interiors have been through numerous iterations, each time moving with the times and staying relevant as the safari industry itself has evolved. Our people, on the other hand, represent the constant through all of these changes… a family that cares for each other and for all of our visitors. I am truly humbled and proud to be a part of the amazing team that is Tanda Tula.
