Bukela five-star game lodge in the Amakhala Game Reserve in the Eastern Cape has launched five new thatched luxury safari tents and an expanded and upgraded new main lodge. Owned by Lion Roars Hotels & Lodges, Bukela is the flagship safari offering for the group, which also owns and operates properties in Cape Town, Winelands, Plettenberg Bay and Port Elizabeth.
Owner and CEO, Kevin Bailey, describes the new tents and main lodge areas at Bukela as central to the sustainability and growth of Lion Roars Hotels & Lodges’ conservation goals. “Every guest at Bukela contributes to and becomes a part of our 20-year conservation journey. To keep this partnership strong, we need to keep staying relevant, adapting our experience to new trends, and integrating new sustainability learning into our operations.”
The design brief for the new tents and main lodge was ‘Sustainable Luxury’. Each of the new luxury safari tents offers indoor-outdoor shower, deep-soaking tub, closed-system wood-burning fireplace, inverter air-conditioner, noiseless minibar fridge, pod coffee machine and two private view decks. Using local manufacturers, and sustainable wood, the furnishings offer a fresh, light take on five-star ‘glamping’.
The new thatched main lodge area includes an airy indoor-outdoor lounge and bar area overlooking the new main pool deck. “To give our guests a front-row seat at our very active waterhole,” says Bailey, “we also added a second swimming pool and deck, overlooking the waterhole.” A keen succulent gardener, Bailey also replanted all the gardens around the main lodge with indigenous succulents, recycling disturbed rock and wood from the build into his designs, and installing a rain water capture system to provide the limited water needs of the new gardens.
Indoor lounge.
“While refreshing our design and creating great new spaces for our guests, we also wanted to integrate new sustainability learning across the whole camp,” says Bailey. “After an extensive energy-efficiency audit we not only integrated new energy efficiencies into the design of our new spaces, but also retrofitted our existing rooms with more efficient technology. The result,” he smiles proudly, “is that with five more suites and double the lodge space, we are using less electricity and water than before.”
Energy efficiencies include incorporating green building principles into the design and siting of the new main lodge areas for maximum solar and airflow efficiencies, replacing open wood-burning fireplaces with closed-system wood burners, using naturally insulating thatch on the five new tents, incorporating new insulation methods into tent sides, installing inverter air-conditioners and switching the whole camp to point-of-use water heating.
“Water efficiencies were also very important to us on this project,” Bailey adds. “The main lodge expansion and new deck gave us a great opportunity to triple our rainwater catchment system and double our grey water recycling system. Working with local suppliers we switched to a comprehensive basket of fully bio-degradable cleaning and laundry materials so that we’re now able to recycle 80% of our water usage at the main lodge.
“This project has been a great opportunity to bring the conservation and hospitality threads of our group more closely together, and to reduce our footprint as a brand,” Bailey sums up. “We’re looking forward to sharing the results with new and returning guests this season.”
