The Story of how ‘White Elephant’ Safari Lodge got it’s name.

God wrestled the beautiful Lebombo Mountains from the steamy Maputaland plains and then allowed nature to rule here with a harsh hand for hundreds of years. But the vast herds of game lured determined men : hunters and explorers, and so began the advance of white man in the early 19^th century. Hunters made considerable fortunes. One such hunter known as “Elephant White”, shot 150 elephants in one season. In the plenitude and greed that was Africa, everything seemed inexhaustible.

But the abundant game began to dwindle and in 1874 President Kruger proclaimed the Pongola Game Reserve, the first protected reserve in Africa. The Anglo Boer War in 1899 brought chaos and the new Game Reserve was abandoned. For years thereafter due to a lack of funds, muddled boundaries and political agendas, the game reserve became a “white elephant”.

After the 1^st World War, man toiled on the steamy plains planting fields, building houses and railway lines but nature continue to rule ruthlessly with droughts and disease and fought a bitter struggle for almost 30 years against sleeping sickness and the tsetse fly. For a long time angry gunfire echoed across the plains. “Kill the game” man cried for he believed he had to destroy the animals to rid the land of the tsetse fly. Hundreds of thousands of animals thudded to the ground and by 1940 the game was gone but the tsetse fly remained: Another “white elephant” in this history of man.

By 1948 man had finally won the tsetse fly war with the introduction of the notorious DDT insecticide. Cattle now flourished and sugar cane crept further along the course of the Pongola River. The construction of the gigantic Jozini Dam began in 1970. But it was a flawed dam with an unnaturally high salt levels in the water rendering it useless to the farmers, that caused considerable controversy and it too, became known as a “white elephant”.

Finally, in 1993, the wheel had turned full circle. Fences were dropped and game re-introductions began. Two elephant herds were relocated to the new reserve by Dr Heinz Kohrs. One of these elephants was an albino, not entirely white but a symbolic reminder of the past “white elephants”. After 100 years, the Lebombos again reverberated with the triumphant sounds of nature and all was good in the land.

The gracious old home at White Elephant Safari lodge dates back to the 1920’s. It’s original name in Zulu is umPhafa, so called because of the large Buffalo thorn tree planted in the garden by Captain Mansfield. The Captain had received the land as a reward in recognition for his service during the war. In 1999, shrouded in the mists of early morning, an elephant bull pushed over the mighty Mphafa tree in the lodge’s garden and it seemed fitting that the restored lodge be named “White Elephant Safari Lodge”.

A century has passed since the first proclamation of the Pongola Game Reserve, one hundred years in which man has struggled against nature. One cannot undo what has been done or rewrite history, but every effort is being made by the team there to shape the future from those past lessons with the dream that one day vast herds will again migrate freely across the plains at the foot of the Lebombos. With the main hope to return this precious land to the wilderness, to the game and to Mother Nature.

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