Our Guide to a Safari at Aquila Private Game Reserve
Looking for a mini safari experience on your Cape Town holiday, then search no further! Aquila Safari is a great way to get a taste of an African safari without scheduling a week-long trip or having long driving days. We had a great time relaxing between game drives at this private game reserve.
Aquila Safari
The Aquila Private Game Reserve is a 24,700 acre reserve and 4-star eco-friendly lodge dedicated to wildlife conservation and preservation. It’s become a popular destination for many tourists, including celebrities like Rihanna, Paris Hilton, Vin Diesel, Katie Holmes, and Benji and Joel Madden. At just 2 hours from Cape Town, it’s easy to go up for a day trip or a short stay. They offer morning, afternoon, and evening safaris in traditional safari vehicles, as well as horseback and quadbike safaris.
What animals can you see there?
The great thing about the Aquila Safari is that you get to see several of the most sought after African animals, without much effort. Since it’s a relatively small reserve, you’re pretty much guaranteed to see most of the animals. Aquila has 4 out of 5 of the Big Five: lions, elephants, rhinoceroses, and African buffalo. It looks like they used to have leopards, but don’t have any there currently. Other animals we saw during our stay include: hippopotamuses, zebras, ostriches, baboons, giraffes, elands, springboks, and wildebeests, including babies of several species. They also have a peacock that lives on the reserve, which you’ll see wandering around in front of the pool and restaurant.
Plus, as an added bonus, you get a wine/drink stop halfway through the afternoon game drives, right in the middle of the reserve. It’s a cool opportunity to enjoy a drink and watch the animals from afar.
Other Amenities
While you relax between safaris, you can enjoy Aquila’s 2 outdoor pools, a 35 meter infinity pool with a swim up bar overlooking the mountains, as well as a smaller, more private outdoor pool near the spa.
At the spa, you can alternate between cold and warm pools, get your heat on in the sauna, or enjoy various treatments, including facials, massages, manicures and pedicures, hair braiding, waxing, and eyebrow and lash shaping and tinting.
Last, but not least, in the evening, they bring out a telescope and light a fire where you can stargaze and roast marshmallows.
Accommodations
Aquila Safari offers a variety of accommodation options to suit your needs. They have standard, family, and premier rooms, as well as cottages. We stayed in one of their standard rooms, the most basic accommodation, which starts at around $125 /night per person, and was perfectly comfortable for the two of us during our 2 night stay. The price includes all your basic game drives plus food, so it’s not too shabby of a price in our opinion.
Dining
Aquila has two dining areas, one for day guests and one for overnight guests. Each meal is served buffet style and varies by day. We read a couple reviews where guests were dissatisfied with the food. However, we enjoyed it just fine.
Breakfast included a variety of hot dishes, like eggs, beans, hash browns, ham, and sausage, waffles, and pancakes, as well as fruit, cereal, cold cuts, and pastries.
And lunches and dinners included links like rice, potatoes, grilled and raw vegetables, beef stew, bobotie, chicken, fish, rolls, and a variety of desserts.
How do you get there?
There are several ways to get to Aquila Safari. You can drive there yourself, arrange a standard group transfer, arrange a private transfer, or fly directly to the reserve by helicopter.
If you choose to drive yourself, you’ll follow highway N1 pretty much the whole way from Cape Town to Aquila Safari. You’ll stay on N1 for about 170 km past Paarl, Worcester, and De Doorns, and then take exit R46 to Ceres. After approximately 3 km, Aquila will be on your left.
If you have an international phone plan or purchased a local SIM card, you can plug “Aquila Private Game Reserve, Touws River” into Google Maps and it should take you straight there.
We opted for the standard transfer where we were picked up from our hotel and transported to Aquila along with other tourists in the area. They use vans/minibuses that seat about 10-15 passengers. If you go this route, it can take a bit longer than 2 hours since they have to pick up other passengers, as well. We spent about 3 hours in the car on the way there because we were one of the first passengers picked up. But on the way back, we were the first ones dropped off and it only took about 2 hours. Round trip transportation was $168 for the two of us. It wasn’t the most comfortable ride, but not too bad since it was a relatively short trip, and they stopped halfway through to allow passengers to stretch, use the restroom, or grab snacks.
If you prefer more space and privacy, you can also book a private transfer.
Or if you’re on a romantic getaway and want to pull out all the stops, you can fly there in a private helicopter and soar over the scenic winelands.
Limited on Time? How long should you spend there?
If you’re limited on time, it is totally possible to make a day trip out here. You can choose to do a half- or full-day trip, with one or two game drives, respectively. You can certainly do this and see most of the animals at the park. But if you want to get the best all around experience, we recommend spending at least one night at the safari.
We really enjoyed spending two nights there. It gave us enough time to see all the animals we wanted multiple times. Plus, we had time to use the spa and relax as well. It made for a wonderful break from Cape Town.
