Guests get taken to Leydsdorp on our game viewer approximately 10minutes away. There they will be taken through a haunted cellar and a tour of the graveyard with cultural information of the miners back in the 1890's where half died of black water fever and lion attacks.

History of the town:Ghost town in Limpopo – Historical Leydsdorp

Walking the dusty streets of Leydsdorp today, it looks like a ghost town sinking back into the lush Limpopo bushveld. But Leydsdorp was once the centre of a short-lived gold boom before politics and the dreaded blackwater fever closed it down. Nevertheless, the legends of Leydsdorp live on …

Just off the R71 from Tzaneen in Limpopo province, at the town of Gravelotte, there’s a turn-off to a place called Leydsdorp.

A gentle dirt track leads to what was briefly a gold boom town that mirrored Mpumalanga’s Pilgrim’s Rest for legend and raucousness.

In the mid-1880s there was a gold rush to the Murchison Range. All the usual gold-rush suspects arrived, people who had been everywhere from Kalgoorlie to the Klondike.

In 1890, a ‘small town with a big cemetery’ was established and named after the state secretary of the Old Transvaal. Blackwater fever took most lives; lions and bar-room brawls accounted for most of the rest of the names in the graveyard.

According to legend, Leydsdorp was declared a city for a day – by Boer President Paul Kruger. At that time important documents could be signed only in cities, and President Kruger was on a hunting trip in Leydsdorp. So he declared the village a city!

One day a popular local chap called Sandy died. The miners built him a coffin out of beer cases, ensconced him in it and told a couple of labourers to take it to the cemetery while they had drinks in memory of their friend.

When they arrived and lifted the coffin up to carry it to the burial plot, they discovered that it was very light: the bottom had broken out of the makeshift coffin and Sandy’s corpse was nowhere to be found.

They found his body at the side of the road, took him back to the pub and stuck him ‘back in his box’ while they had a few more drinks to discuss the incident. By then it was too late in the day to bury him – the mosquitoes were already massing over at the graveyard.

Characters called Mica Bill, Paraffin Joe, Brandy Smith and The Heavenly Twins mined claims called the Old Birthday, the Flying Dutchman, Antelope and Blue Jacket.

More than 3 000 miners and opportunists gathered in Leydsdorp during its heyday, where no fewer than 8 bars slaked their thirst.

Accommodation was hard to find: 2 miners burrowed into a giant ant hill and set up home – they even built a kitchen down there with a stove and a chimney.

We take guests on an hour long bush walk through the hills of the Murchison Mountain Range that is linked to the ancient trade route linked to Mapangupwe. Very informative and guests get enticed with talks on the local fauna and flora as well as the rich history of the area

Enjoy a surprise dinner set up in the middle of the bush either on on of our build platforms or among the trees

We set up sala beds on selected platforms with all the needed amenities. High powered telescopes are brought along for the experience. We discuss the solar system in detail.

Tours of west Zambian Sable, Roan Antelope, Black Impala, Golden Gunu and TB free buffalo specimens that have not been seen since the early 1900. With in depth talks on each species and their significance in nature as well as their history.

The largest baobab in the Limpopo area, the Sunderland baobab has fallen over and this is now the biggest. It is connected to the first horse drawn coaches that came through the area. Guests are told of its history of being the coldest place to store beer in the 1900

Guests are taken on game drives on the Reserve, either in the morning or late afternoon and spend the time drink in hand viewing the various exotic game species we have as well as plains game.