Magic Hills

Magic Hills spreads over some 17,000 hectares of the Karoo in South Africa’s Eastern Cape, about 25 kilometers from Jansenville. Open plains, rolling hills, and riverbeds give way to rocky outcrops, cliffs, and deep valleys, and the ground rises from 467 to 920 meters above sea level. Spekboom thicket, much of it recovering, covers most of the reserve, with noorsveld, rocky grassland, and Nama Karoo shrubland besides. Water comes from springs, seasonal rivers, earth dams, and boreholes.

Wildlife includes the Big Five and giraffe, with eland, kudu, gemsbok, zebra, wildebeest, and springbok among the plains game. The aardvark, caracal, porcupine, and bat-eared fox come out at night, and the bird list includes Karoo endemics. Guided game drives, by day and by night, cover the full range of habitats.

Four lodges stand on the reserve. Sky Lodge, of about 1,100 square meters, sits on a peak, with an infinity pool, viewing decks, and seven suites, each with a fireplace and two with their own pools. Ilanga Manor, a renovated and much enlarged farmhouse in the Cape Dutch style, has about 2,900 square meters on two floors under thatch, with a large dining and living hall, a bar, a library, a gym, and a pool. It holds memorabilia of the Anglo-Boer War. A restored Karoo farmhouse of four bedrooms runs off the grid on solar power, and a self-catering lodge has nine units. The reserve also has staff housing, workshops, and barns.

Conservation comes first for the owners, who assembled the reserve over several years from fourteen farm portions and enclosed it within a perimeter game fence. Rock shelters and archaeological sites lie across country once home to the San and the nomadic Khoi. A rehabilitation of the veld is under way, clearing exotic plants from land overgrazed for generations and reintroducing the grasses and thicket that once grew wild.