Olifants Rest Camp — Hotel in Ba-Phalaborwa Local Municipality

🦍 Olifants Rest Camp – Views to Die For, Baboons to Die From

Olifants Rest Camp is perched like Pride Rock on top of a hill, and the views over the Olifants River are nothing short of cinematic. Honestly, if you don’t stand there humming The Circle of Life, are you even doing it right?

🍽️ Restaurant & Lookout: The restaurant is lovely and comes with a view that makes even instant coffee feel fancy. There’s a separate lookout point too, perfect for pretending you’re David Attenborough… until a cheeky baboon shows up and reminds you who’s really in charge here.

🚴‍♂️ Activities Galore: This place offers more activities than a school holiday camp: game drives, walks, biking tours — the works. I signed up for the night drive, which was… how do I put this nicely… a romantic bush cruise in the dark, during which we saw approximately three impalas and a confused scrub hare. The area is thick with bush, so unless the animals have headlights, don’t expect many sightings after sunset.

🏡 The Chalets: Yes, they’re on the vintage side — but just like your gran’s best doilies, they’re well looked after. Clean, comfortable, and the outside kitchens mean your boerewors comes with a view (and maybe a side of baboon drama if you’re not careful).

🚨 Baboon Alert: These guys are bushveld burglars with attitude. Leave your bread rolls unattended, and they’ll host a carb-fueled rooftop party before you can say “Eish!” Lock everything up or be prepared to negotiate with a baboon over your margarine.

👥 Crowd Factor: Olifants is way more popular than the chilled-out camps up north, so expect a bit more tourist traffic and queueing behind people in safari hats bigger than their heads.

✅ Final Word: A must-visit for the view alone. Just pack your sense of humour, your binoculars, and a padlock for your rusks. Stay a couple of nights, soak in the scenery, and maybe skip the night drive unless you enjoy playing “Where’s Wally?”...

Update: And this year I saw you in all your glory. You, even if there were no knives in our bungalow and the climate would not work normally, and maybe there would not be enough water pressure, and today there would be no walls in our bungalow, I still love you, my dear camp. When I first saw you, it was love at first sight, you are the best! Maybe there are those where there are more animals, maybe there are those where there are more plants, and maybe there are even those where it’s just more comfortable, but you and your river have won my heart. And I hope that I will see you at least once again in my life! ...

This time it was the second village of our trip to the Kruger. We love this village. It was the love at first sight a few years ago. Located on the Kruger approximately in the middle of the park. From this point it is good to start the journey to the north of Kruger Park. The north is mostly known for its flora, but not its fauna. So this is where the flora lovers come here. There are few people in the villages as a rule and the camps are not very busy, but it has its own charm. So with Olifants camp you can explore the north.

And now to the Olifants camp. Lovely restaurant with great views of Olifant River. You won't find another view like this from a restaurant anywhere in Kruger Park! Excellent service, super store with everything you need for independent living. Here on the river you will see elephants on the other side of the river or hippos. But the view of the river is amazing, you will remember it for a lifetime, that's for sure! Now to my favorite houses. We lived in two houses, in 13 at a price higher and 1 at a price a little lower, both have their charm. Try to take the number 11, 12 or 13 at first, and houses with numbers 1-6...

We are proudly South African but felt ashamed when we hosted our overseas family and guests for a holiday in the Kruger National Park. Beautiful location/scenery at Lebombo Lodge. However, on arrival fridge/freezer and aircon in living area were not working and the kitchen could not be utilised at all due to a huge water leak in the ceiling, extremely close to one ceiling light and another ceiling light that had been removed and never replaced/repaired. We were 9 adults and had our 9 month old grandchild with us and could not utilise the stove nor the microwave to prepare food for her as the kitchen floor tiles were dangerously wet from the regular water dripping from the ceiling. The stove plates were rusted from the water leaking onto them. The Maintenance Manager repaired the faulty plugs on the fridge/freezer and aircon and mopped up the kitchen floor but advised they could do nothing about the kitchen ceiling leakage. So the water dripping from the ceiling continued unabated. The Duty Manager, Themba, visited us thereafter and confirmed that the leak was an ongoing problem! Themba offered us a 20% discount on our next visit to Olifants as compensation for the inconvenience we were caused, but with totally unacceptable facilities of this kind, we DO NOT want to visit there again! We also found that the general upkeep and maintenance of the Lodge was totally sub standard, i.e. broken mesh screens, cobwebs and dust throughout the unit, grass and weeds growing in plant and flower beds. DEFINATELY NOT RECOMMENDED nor what we expected from the upper tier accommodation at...