Mankwe GAMETRACKERS — Attraction in Moses Kotane Local Municipality

Firstly, I would just like to say that the staff was so lovely. Our driver was Tsviago (I butchered that, I am truly sorry). He was so warm, and extremely knowledgeable!!! Another driver we met at the balloon (Mr. jones, I think?) was absolutely hilarious. And of course, our balloon pilot Jarpy (I am so sorry again for this spelling) was also very informative and kind.

However, I made this booking approximately 2 months prior to the scheduled flight. Approximately 2 weeks after I made the booking, I asked to cancel, and to receive a refund. They said this was not possible, not even a partial refund. Which I thought was absolutely ridiculous, because there was more than a month notice. But I understand covid has been difficult, so I let it go. All of this occurred via email. The day before our flight, at 5pm, I still had not received any messages in regard to our flight times, meeting point, etc. I called the office and they said they had been trying to get in touch with me… they had my email, and I never received anything from them. Anyways, we organized a time and a place. Our 03:45 pick up arrives (yes, it’s truly that early), and then drives down to Cabanas to pickup a couple at 04:00 only to turn back around, pass our hotel, and drive to the next one. This was just annoying. Seriously? It’s 04:00. According to common sense and also the street, we should have been picked up second, not first. Lastly, and most importantly, I was really hoping to see animals from the balloon (obviously). I think this park really struggles with ANY wildlife sightings because of the small amount of animals, and so, while we technically saw a single giraffe and a pod of hippos, that is all we saw. That has nothing at all to do with this company, but when I was deciding where to book my balloon safari I desperately wanted to know what the likelihood of spotting animals would be (again, I know it’s completely random and nobody’s fault), but didn’t realize you could do balloon safaris near Kruger, and so booked this first, realized my mistake, and attempted to get a refund with no luck.

Additionally, this is not a national park. It is managed by NW Park’s board, and also - a large chunk privately owned. The park was created in the 1970s, and so none of the animals are native there, they were all placed there. Which is fantastic! But they also decided that 36 lions was too great a number. They have recently culled over 24 of the lions that they bought and bred into this habitat. This is more of a political opinion of course, but for me, this just felt like a zoo.

At the end of our balloon ride (that was very beautiful and peaceful), we got a game drive as well, and we saw elephants, giraffes, rhinos (de-horned), and a pride of lions. Apparently, this is quite spectacular to see this amount of animals, because there was about a ten car queue on the roadside to view said lions. Perhaps it’s naive of me, but I did not expect queueing in a park… again, this just felt like a large zoo accessed by car. I really did learn a lot, but I left feeling disappointed and misled (in regards to the Park, not Gametrackers).

Overall, I unfortunately would not recommend a balloon safari here, but that does have mostly to do with the park. However, Gametrackers management fell short...

Fan-bloody-tastic. We opted for a private balloon over Pilanesberg. Booking 6 months out the process was highly professional and super easy and awesome to wait out. On the night before the comms were excellent and we were made to feel super confident that these peeps knew their game well. On the day of the balloon ride the transfer was early and waiting for us. Drive to the launch site was a mini game drive with Serval and Rhino spotted. Then the most amazing experience of a lifetime. All that and so so much more. Mind blowingly more. Nothing can help you understand the calm, quiet, peaceful and surreal glide a balloon ride is. Anticipating bump and grind and swooshing through the air, none of this was how it was. Quiet as a mouse, bar the hot air blast now and then. Low, so low we could hear the rhinos run and snort below us. Peaceful as not much stirred at sunrise and the world is quiet and noting stirred but us overhead. So, so slow we glided and had time to have sights and animals pointed out to us. Pictures were easy to take and the golden hour light made for some dramatic pics. Being just two in a private balloon helped the unrushed feel and the pilot only had our questions to answer and our pleasure to fulfil. So many reasons to recommend this particular company. Professional. Safe. Experienced. Excellent hosts. Proud of ballooning as a hobby, career and experience. Educators, we learnt so much cool balloon and animal stuff. We never had their packed breakfast they took for us but peeked and oh my word there was a lot! We donated it all to the ground crew as we had a hotel breakfast waiting. (Who makes a massive grandiose cheese and fruit platter, among other foods, and calls it the side dish!!! Over the top but they walk the extra mile on all they do so...) Thank you. 10 out of 10...

We can not thank Mankwe Game trackers enough for making our trip the holiday of a lifetime!! We've made memories that will last a lifetime! It's so hard to put in to words just how amazing our experiences were. Prior to our trip we had booked 3 tours but after our first game drive we booked additional experiences! We ended up doing over 5 tours in 6 days! This included game drives, the family walking tour and the quad biking. Every single tour we did was just out of this world! All the guides we had were so friendly, fun, knowledgeable and got us the absolute best out of each tour! We had Greg as our guide for one of our game drives and also the family walking tour, he was so knowledgeable, fun and enthusiastic and we learnt so much from him! He happily answered my many many questions haha and was a joy to be around! All the guides were so professional and passionate about the animals and the surroundings it was so lovely to see. I would highly recommend doing a game drive at each of the different available times if possible we did one at 7am, 10am and 3pm over 3 days and it was amazing to see how you see different animals active at each time. The family Bush walk is also an amazing opposite to be in your family group, get closer to animals such as giraffe and zebra and to be able to ask more questions and learn from your guide. My only negative is that Mankwe made it so much harder for us to leave and go home haha! We honestly can't thank them enough! They made it a trip of a lifetime and you will not be disappointed! We can not wait to go back and visit and book as many tours as we can...