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from £315 or €360
Suitable for all levels of riders. Also perfect for non-riders. A perfect honeymoon destination or special celebration as each lodge can be quite secluded or you can join in to the party atmosphere equally. A minimum of 3 nights is required for this trip however we recommend 7 to make the most of it.
SPECIAL – Ask about long stay rates low season
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Rates are quoted per person sharing and include all fees including a conservation fee.
High Season
20 March – 30 April, 1 July – 31 August, 1 – 31 October, 15 December – 9 January 2024
Ants Nest
Ants Hill
Low Season
10 January – 19 March, 1 May – 30 June (excluding Game Census), 1 – 30 September, 1 November – 12 December
Ants Nest
Ants Hill
Suitable for all levels of riders. Also perfect for non-riders. A perfect honeymoon destination or special celebration as each lodge can be quite secluded or you can join in to the party atmosphere equally. A minimum of 3 nights is required for this trip however we recommend 7 to make the most of it. Special rates available for 7 nights and more.
Choose your currency
Rates are quoted per person sharing and include all fees including a conservation fee.
Ants Nest
Ants Hill
Special 7 Nights and Over Rates
Available all year round except Christmas, New Year, Easter and during Game Census
Ants Nest
Ants Hill
Ask about discounts for 7 night stays, children rates and exclusive use rates.
Note: Rates are subject to daily exchange rate fluctuations, please refer to our Terms & Conditions for full details.
Open all year round.
Includes – All the riding, accommodation, meals (note lunch is included on either day of arrival or departure, if you need lunch both days then a fee of £15 for the extra lunch will be applied), drinks & alcohol, bush walks, game drives & mountain biking, babysitting & laundry.
Excludes – Flights, transfers & tips.
Getting There
International flight to Johannesburg.
Transfer
Private car transfer approx. 3 hours from Johannesburg airport. Approx £300 each way per car. It is also possible to charter a private plane to Ant’s own private airstrip, please ask us for a quote.
All our horse riding holidays hold a price guarantee. We believe in your piece of mind on price when you book one of our horse riding holidays and will refund the difference should you find the same horse riding holiday elsewhere at a lower price.
This is a very exciting riding safari destination as you quickly really feel part of the team and can often get involved in game captures if there are any injured animals when you are there. It’s brilliant for experienced riders and equally beginners and non riders are superbly well catered for.
Olympic medallist International Showjumper ‘Cian O’Connor’ travelled with ‘Zara’s Planet’ to Ants Collection and says of his horse-riding safari in South Africa ‘there is a uniqueness to going on safari on horseback that travelling in a Land Rover can never give you…’. Ants Nest and Ants Hill are two unique bush homes located on their own private game reserves, set in the beautiful and diverse malaria free Waterberg region of the Limpopo province of South Africa. Together, they offer some really excellent fantastic sporty riding & game viewing. Uniquely they can cater for beginner, novice and also experienced adventurous riders as well as non riders.
An absolute stand out at Ants safari lodges are the quality and variety of the 90 horses, testiment to Ants love of horses, his exceptional horse management team and years of building up arguably the best herd of horses in South Africa.
The safari lodges in Ants Collection are very special, each one has been individually, and very tastefully designed by the owner Ant Baber – add to that some fantastic personal service and top class good looking horses, an amazing team to host you and you understand why clients return here year after year.
Ants Collection boasts a great selection of 90 fit, reliable and responsive horses and ponies. There is no doubt that there is a horse or some horses on the reserve to suit every level of rider – they give great rides and are an absolute pleasure to ride out in the bush. All of them are well trained and behave extremely quietly around the plentiful game.
The diverse topography and ecology across the reserve at Ants Collection, which is a vast 12,500 acres means the bush is teeming with a variety of game species, including rhino and buffalo, leggy giraffes, rare sable antelopes & Livingstone eland, herds of eland, zebra, wildebeest, big spiral horned kudu and fleet-footed oryx, just to mention a few. More recently, there has also been sightings of leopard.
Apart from all the great activities to be enjoyed during the day, like riding, game drives, mountain biking, walks and chilling out by the gorgeous pools, the evenings are great fun too, very sociable with excellent food – think best friend dinner party style with wonderful South African wines. If of course, you would like to enjoy a more personal evening, perhaps to celebrate your honeymoon or anniversary, Ants can also set you up with your dining experience away from the crowd at a secluded spot at the lodge or in your room.
With a guest to guide ratio of 4:1, the service at Ants Collection is top class, and very personal, and we’d also recommend visiting this lodge to celebrate something special like your honeymoon or wedding anniversary. Ants is also very well equipped to host families in the holiday season.
Horses – South African Boerperd, forward going Thoroughbreds, Fresians and exciting cross breeds lie Boerperd cross Fresian & Thoroughbred.
Level of Riding & Pace – Beginner to Advanced. The pace at Ants is tailored to your riding ability, perfect for beginners and some really exciting and sporty fast paced riding for advanced riders. You won’t be disappointed.
Tack – English style with a mixture of South African Stock Saddles and English. Most horses ridden in snaffle bridles.
Weight Restriction – 120kg / 19 Stone / 266 lbs.
Group Size – Maximum 6 on ride outs
On this vast, private reserve of 12,500 acres, Ants Hill and Ants Nest are the only properties.
The lodges at Ants Collection are beautifully purpose built, using stone from the surrounding area and incorporating trees that support ceilings. They both have pools, some cottages with their own plunge pools and all fabulously decorated with antique furniture chosen by Ant and his family.
Ants Nest – The original lodge and where it all began. Great pool and outdoor areas, plus this lodge is great for families with kids as it is flat, and rooms are closer together. We have lots of guests who rent the Nest exclusively for special occasions.
Room Descriptions
Davidson, Kingfisher & Flycatcher – Basic Standard rooms
We don’t think any rooms at Ants are basic and love these cosy bush lodge rooms at ground level perfect for couples or friends. The rooms are not huge but perfectly adequate sized and we love how you can step out, enjoy your own little seating area outside and skip a few steps down the path to the pool.
Rondavel – Superior Standard room
A relatively new room tucked around the back through an arch at the Nest, it offers you a more private experience and lovely authentic bush home feel.
Sable Suite (1&2) & Weaver Suite – Deluxe rooms
We totally love the Sable and Weaver suites…and highly recommend the splurge. A personal favourite of Zara’s is the double room in Sable. A gorgeous 4 poster overlooking the pool area with a huge picture windows. Then a fabulous deep bath and big walk in shower in the very spacious bathroom. The suite has a stunning courtyard seating area perfect for sipping wine and recounting adventures of the day and for cooler summer evening and massive fireplace…
Ants Hill – This lodge is newer and sits on a hill as the name suggests, giving all the rooms great views across the reserve. Again, lovely pool area and outdoor spaces to enjoy. There are several secluded romantic mini lodges here with private pools and baths with a view.
Eagles Nest – Superior Standard
A mere 15 steps from the pool area to this delightful superior standard room which is located above the main lodge building. It can be booked as either a twin or double room.
It has an en-suite bathroom and spacious outside balcony with daybed, with stunning views over the valley from its elevated position.
Lookout Cottage and Family Cottage – Deluxe
A deluxe cottage – this stunning cottage is ideal for honeymooners with a double size four poster bed, or for 2 friends travelling together which can be changed to 2 twin beds. The bedroom features a fireplace to keep you cosy on winter evenings and opens out onto a deck with carved daybed, overlooking the valley. The open plan en-suite bathroom features a bath with a view, a waterfall shower and an outdoor shower overlooking the valley
for that ‘in the bush’ feeling.
Hideaway Cottage and World’s View Cottage – Superior Deluxe
Hideaway is secluded and private, this luxury cottage is perfect for honeymooners or couples looking for a romantic getaway, yet is large enough to accommodate beds for two children sharing (on bunkbeds)with their parents. The king-size four poster bed has stunning views across the valley, through the French doors that open up onto the outside deck and verandah. The verandah features a carved day bed for relaxing in the shade, whilst the steps take you down to a private garden and plunge pool. For those winter evenings, there is a cosy seating area inside with an open fire. The open plan en-suite bathroom features a sunken bath and French doors leading to the deck, bringing the outside indoors.
There is a waterfall shower inside and an outside shower overlooking the valley.
World’s View cottage is the ultimate bush retreat. It is perfect for families of up to five people or two couples travelling together. The en-suite double bedroom upstairs with bath and
shower opens up on to a private balcony with an outside bath overlooking the stunning valley below where giraffe, zebra, kudu and eland can often be seen wandering.
The spacious bedroom downstairs opens on to the private heated pool. This room can either be a twin, double or triple and has an en-suite bathroom featuring a bath with a view, a shower and an outside waterfall shower. There is a covered veranda with comfortable day beds outside for relaxing during the heat of the day that leads to the pool area with sun-beds. On chilly winter evenings, one can cosy up next to the open fire in the sitting room with a glass of wine from the mini-bar.
Both lodges have their own horses, stables and paddocks.
The food at Ants Collection is great, variety of breakfasts to suit everyone from simple porridge to a full cooked breakfast. Lunchtimes are plentiful, freshly baked quiches, pies and lasagnes with fresh salads, fruit and cheese and for dinners, it’s 3 courses, soups, prawns, beef fillet, some game meat, like Warthog Schnitzel or Kudu or Eland steak with potatoes and fresh vegetables, finished off with cheesecakes and sponge puddings – just think dinner party style – all washed down with a good choice of the best South African wines or whatever your preference might be.
We have travelled the world testing a huge variety of horse riding holidays to make sure we offer you, our client, the best horse riding holiday experience possible.
Our horse riding holidays are thoroughly researched – we consider all the elements that go towards making our horse riding holidays collection the best in the world. We check the quality of the horses, if they are fit for the job, well produced and looked after. We make sure the riding terrain is good going, the countryside is interesting and, for example, on Classic Dressage horse riding holidays, the arenas are in good condition. We make sure the accommodation, whether it’s a five star hotel, a farmhouse or camping, is clean and comfortable, and offers a great night’s sleep. The food is all important too – we take the time to make sure we tell you if it’s cordon bleu, home cooked, or regional and locally sourced – above all it has to be delicious, plentiful and nourishing. Last but not least, we choose the horse riding holidays that have the best hosts, who are friendly, warm and welcoming.
It’s only when all these elements come together that we add a horse riding holiday into our hand-picked collection of horse riding holidays.
Horse Riding Holidays at Ants Collection is part of the Zara’s Planet collection of Horse Riding Holidays South Africa.
In addition, guests can also have massages, there’s a Big 5 Game reserve nearby you can visit to see animals like elephants and lion.
Please Ask About
Itineraries at Ants Collection are tailor-made to your individual requirements and include safari rides, games drives, walks and mountain biking.
See below 2 very personal accounts of stays at Ants and during the Game Census.
Cian O’Connors (International Show Jumper) Diary of his visit to Ants Collection, South Africa & Benguerra Lodge, Mozambique.
The food at Ants Collection is typically African and involves a lot of fresh meat, fish and vegetables.
The first day, because there is only a two-hour time difference, we went on an afternoon safari as soon as we arrived, but on the second we relaxed with massages on our private deck and a leisurely lunch by the pool.
There’s a wonderful backup team at Ant’s Hill that get everything ready for your safari. They say your business is only as good as your staff, and the Babers can be very happy indeed with the level of service politeness and dedication shown by all their staff members.
The horses are fit and reliable, and you get equipped with comfortable McClellan saddles, based upon the famous US cavalry saddle which was designed for many long hours of riding, and which are made here locally.
There is a uniqueness to going on a safari on horseback that travelling in a Land Rover can never give you. Here you are at one with the wildlife, with nothing separating you from the huge variety of game that trots or canters alongside you, or sometimes just regards you with a baleful eye from the bush – you are never sure if they see you as being one of them, or whether they might want to eat you!
Seriously, though, we came across very little actual danger and with experienced guides leading our party Ruth and I felt very comfortable.
They have horses to suit all levels, but the one they gave me was very fresh – I think they were hoping I would take a tumble, but I didn’t give them the satisfaction!
So, what did we see? It was more like what we didn’t see – Cape buffalo, white rhino, Livingstone eland, waterbuck, greater kudu, impala, nyala, bushbuck, red hartebeest, Burchell’s zebra, blue wildebeest, gemsbuck, sable antelope, warthog, leopard, brown hyena, bushpig, steenbuck, mountain rhebuck, duiker, klipspringer, caracal, jackal, porcupine, honey badger, aardvark, and a host of smaller cats and animals. There are also over 300 bird species in the area.
If you’re a family group and some members don’t ride, there are plenty of alternative activities, such as jeep safaris, and safaris on foot.
But both Ruth and I agreed that there is a magic in going on horseback, especially when the crew go ahead and prepare a camp where when you arrive you can watch as the sun goes down and enjoy a ‘sundowner’ drink before being taken back to the lodge in a 4X4.
The horses are put out at night into the game reserve, so that the other animals get used to them and are not frightened when they appear the next day with riders on their backs.
After the wonderful few days at Ant’s Hill, the second leg of our Zara’s Planet holiday took us by air to an island off the coast of Mozambique called Benguerra, where we stayed at the luxurious Benguerra Lodge, and as promised in the brochure, it is ‘barefoot luxury’ all the way.
This was a very different type of holiday to the safari, insofar as it was pure peace and relaxation. It consisted of the main lodge where the bars and restaurants were, and several casitas (small bungalows) with their own pool and deck right on the beach.
The weather was beautiful, and the water warm. And for me, it was just about lying out in the sun and getting away from the real world for a few days. Ruth was a bit more adventurous and went diving one afternoon and saw stingray and octopus but though she was looking for whale sharks, none turned up that day.
The hotel also provides horses so that the guests can have a tour of the island. Benguerra has just 260 families, which works out at 1960 people including children, who live just behind the lodges in pretty rudimentary dwellings, although all seemed very happy and pleased to see us.
The main occupations by the locals are fishing and employment in one of the three lodges on the island. Tourism in the lodges also helps with things like funding the small primary school which offers basic schooling for 360 children.
Benguerra Lodge is an idyllic getaway with its white sands and turquoise waters – you can forget about the hustle and bustle back home, and with no TV or radio in the rooms at either of the places where we stayed you actually get to know your other half very well, and rather quickly!
Gordon Gourlays account of his Game Census, a Zara’s Planet Client
Game Census week at Ants Collection
The game census week at Ant’s Nest was a wonderful mixture of excitement, scientific and ecological interest and fun. Game capture is a necessary part of the business of running a game reserve. It is also the tremendously exciting, particularly using horses to track the animal. When an animal ‘goes down’ it is important to get there as quickly as possible to keep its head up and prevent constriction of the windpipe and possible death. Horses play a key role in this process since they can rapidly cover varied terrain and can usually get to the animal more quickly than a vehicle. It certainly tests your cross-country riding skills dodging thorn bushes, clambering over rocky terrain and keeping the darted animal in sight.
Animals have to be darted for a number of reasons – to be treated for illness, to be moved to another game reserve (e.g. when a young male becomes a threat to the dominant male). The darting at Ant’s was carried out by a local wildlife vet named Paul. It is a skilled operation requiring careful calculation of the dosage in the dart and a steady hand when firing it! Paul exuded a calm and quiet authority as he and Ant directed operations. On the first morning a young female white rhino was captured and moved to another reserve: it is important to avoid inbreeding within the herd as she reaches maturity. It was a wonderful experience to be so close to such a magnificent animal.
I hadn’t appreciated the scale of rhino poaching in Africa until visiting Ant’s. The black rhino in particular was (and still is) on the brink of extinction. As I understand it, the majority of the African rhino population is now in South Africa with private game reserves playing a significant role in their conservation.
As the week continued, we captured eland, sable and giraffe as well as rhino. Each presented different challenges with the giraffe proving to be particularly elusive! Happily, the darting and capture was successful in each case with the animals successfully treated and transported as appropriate.
A varied programme of events was laid on in the evenings. Ant’s brother-in-law provided a superb introduction to astronomy with a fascinating tour of the night sky. Planets and stars were projected onto a large screen with an illuminating commentary on their location and significance. On another evening we were treated to a talk on the efforts being made to conserve and protect the rhino.
The social aspect of the week culminated in a dinner and party on the last evening. I think it would be fair to say that the evening, like the rest of the week, proved to be a great success!
Bush Camp Lapalala
Lapalala is a huge wilderness area of 36,000 hectares in the Waterberg Mountains about an hour’s drive from Ant’s Nest. It has returned to natural Savannah after attempts at farming in the area failed in the 1930’s. It supports a diverse population of African animals including black and white rhinos, hippos, leopard, giraffe, eland, kudu, impala and many others. The human population is restricted to a small number of conservationists and rangers and a few lucky guests at the safari lodge.
We were a little daunted to find that our guide at Lapalala, Jona, always carried a rifle for our protection. The rifle is rarely used since most animals steer clear of you in daytime, but we needed to have a way to deter any particularly tetchy black rhinos that we might come across.
Jona led us on a number of hikes through the stunning wilderness. There was an intense contrast between the arid uplands and the rich greenery of the two river valleys that we trekked along. Our visit was at the end of the long dry winter season and yet the rivers were comfortably full of a strong stream flowing through both. Geologically the land has changed little since the original rocks were formed early in the earth’s history: there has been little faulting or volcanic activity in the area. This means that rocks lie in horizontal bands which you can readily see from the valley floor.
The hiking was strenuous enough to make you feel that you had accomplished something without being overly daunting. We scrambled down a steep slope towards the valley floor to the great amusement of some nearby gibbons.
Although there are crocodiles and hippos in the river, Jona assured us that we could swim happily in shallow pools with a good flow of water through them. I splashed a little in these pools not totally convinced of the absence of large reptiles and mammals!
It is a wonderful thing to trek for hours in the bush without coming across another human. The trek would be punctuated by a soaring raptor, perhaps an African Snake Eagle, or a kudu calling to warn its fellows of the strange approaching bipeds.
Hippos stay in deep pools during the day, but it was wonderful to see them surfacing for a snort of air in the middle distance.
As ever the hospitality under Ant and Tessa’s regime is exemplary. Lunchtime picnics by the river were particularly memorable. The bush home itself is altogether more substantial than the term ‘camp’ implies. I hadn’t quite expected to have an en suite toilet, with all mod cons, as part of one’s tent!
Zara’s Planet Horse Riding Holidays Guarantee:
All our horse riding holidays hold a price guarantee. We believe in your piece of mind on price when you book one of our horse riding holidays and will refund the difference should you find the same horse riding holiday elsewhere at a lower price.
If you are having trouble finding exactly the right horse riding holiday for you from our horse riding holidays collection, please contact us directly using the form below and tell us in your own words what you would like to do and we will use our extensive knowledge to make sure we find that perfect horse riding holiday.
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