Friday 18 October 2013

A Walk Down Safari Lodge Memory Lane...

Today marks Zululand Safari Lodge’s 43th birthday! It opened its doors for business on 15 October 1970 for the first time, changing the future of Ubizane Reserve forever. In co-operation with Cape Hotels Group, Safari Lodge was established and realized Norman Deane’s dream for the beautiful reserve to become a tourist destination.

Back in those days, Safari Lodge had a very different look and feel to it.  As the only lodge on the reserve, it had a dining room, cocktail bar and 42 double rooms.  Safari Lodge also had two boma’s – one for dining and one for Zulu dancing.  Today we still have the one boma which we use as a dining venue. The dining room and bar has been moved to Tree Lodge as the main restaurant. 



Ownership has shifted tremendously throughout the years moving from private ownership to leisure companies such as Sun International and the Three Cities Group, and then back to private ownership again.  With each owner bringing their unique atmosphere to Ubizane, Safari Lodge soon became a popular tourist destination. 





 The Three Cities Group owned Ubizane until 2009 with the group consisting of the main investors from three different cities; Mark Taylor, Mike Harrison, Robert Maingard and Alan Burke.





In 2009, one of the Three Cities investors, Mr. Alan Burke, saw the potential of Ubizane Wildlife Reserve. Ubizane was in desperate need at that stage for renovation and a make-over.  Mr. Burke bought out all the shares for Ubizane Wildlife Reserve in December 2009 and renovations began in 2010. 

Now, three years later, Safari Lodge (and the whole of Ubizane) is still under Mr. Burke’s ownership and has been showing remarkable progress as rooms have been beautifully refurbished and a team works hard every day to keep the original dream of Norman Deane alive. 






If you have any photographs of Safari Lodge throughout the years, send them to social@ubizane.co.za and we’ll post it into our “memory lane” album on Facebook.

Tuesday 15 October 2013

HAPPY BIRTHDAY SAFARI LODGE


Happy Birthday Zululand Safari Lodge! 1970 - 2013 and still going strong!

Thursday 10 October 2013

She said Yes!

We had the pleasure of hosting another engagement this past week. On a decorated Bush Deck Mark Agterbos asked Chantal Steenstra to become his wife and with tears in her eyes she said yes. Mark exclaimed thereafter, "She said yes!" 

Congratulations to another happy couple who became engaged at Ubizane!

















Tuesday 8 October 2013

New Home for the Barn Owls

Our beautiful Barn Owls that we have hand raised have finally found a new home! We built an aviary especially for them and a new project we have decided to tackle.  Ubizane is proudly entering the world of bird rehabilitation and we invite the public to bring any birds of prey that needs rehabilitation to our brand new aviary! Email: social@ubizane.co.za for more information about this exciting new project!




 We went from an open patch of grass with only a few poles to a full aviary in only a couple of weeks time.


The Release over the weekend:







Feel free to come visit our two Barn Owls and get to know these birds of prey better! 



Sunday 6 October 2013

A Perfect Day

On 5 October 2013 Douglas Briel proposed to Monique Kohrs in a fairy tale setting on our Bush Deck under a warm glow from the African sun. A big congratulations to the happy couple!!!














Tuesday 1 October 2013

Bronze Beauty up for Auction

Ubizane is proud to announce that our generous owner, Mr. Alan Burke, has donated a very special artwork to Celebrate Life SA.  The artwork is a beautiful bronze statue of a White Rhino which was carefully crafted by the talented, Allen Hallett. 

White Rhino sculpture by Allen Hallett
 The Bronze artwork is on auction through Celebrate Life SA to raise funds for the rhino sanctuary at Thula Thula Game Reserve.  Bids are accepted until 30 October 2013 and the auction will be held during the Save the Rhino fund-raising gala dinner which will be hosted in London on 23 January 2014 (http://www.celebratelifesa.org/index.php/9-uncategorised/105-save-the-rhino-gala-dinner.html).


Saving the Rhino is a cause that lies closely to Mr. Burke’s heart, with two of our Rhino being poached at Ubizane (read The War Against Poaching for the full story http://www.ubizane.blogspot.com/2013/08/the-war-against-poaching.html) so it is no surprise that he would want to donate to this worthy cause! 

Our big boy, the only White Rhino left on our reserve


Together with Celebrate Life SA we would like to invite our guests who will be in the United Kingdom during the time, to attend the gala dinner and support the cause!  Don’t miss out on the exciting opportunity where you could own a beautiful artwork by Allen Hallett and in the process donate money to a great cause, to SAVE THE RHINO!