Stay at Ke Nako Lodges in Wilderness
Nothing beats a log cabin nestled between lush forestry and diverse bird life in the town of Wilderness.
We never would have guessed that this place is hidden behind a hill or that it’s deep in nature. But what did we expect by a Garden Route retreat?
Wilderness is among the many beautiful towns along the iconic Garden Route and staying at Ke Nako Lodge felt right. Richard, our host called asking what time is our arrival. 14:30 pm, I said while we were still passing through Riviersonderend. The clock striked 13:35 and we weren’t nearly as close as we thought; stopping for fuel in a town called Albertina.
“Sorry, Richard. There’s no way we’ll be there that time. I’m pretty sure we’ll be an hour late”, calling once I took a bathroom break.
15:43 pm when I saw the sign, ‘Welcome to Wilderness’ with still 15 minutes until we get to our lodge. Left turn onto a 6km tarmac road, we found ourselves in front of gravel; leading us onto Bo-Langvlei Road. With our GPS still saying 10 minutes to go, we had to carry on driving.
Bumpy yet bearable, we made our way up; not until we reached a few rocky patches with Courtney starring diggers into my direction for yet again choosing a place with significant gravel pastures.
Ke Nako Lodge is a stunningly wooden cabin, reminding me so much of old Western movies. Richard, our host was so lovely, he even educated me about a bird species I never knew existed. “Wow! That’s a Spoonbill Bird in our little dam. We hardly see those since we had lack of rainfall”. It’s white with a long bill which they use for wading through shallow water.
It was searching for food in a muddy, shallow dam beneath us.
Come inside
Even the walls were wooden.
Stepping foot into our lodge for the next two nights required me to find a place I’d call home and Ke Nako did just that. It gave me a warm feeling the minute I saw how well the place was used. The open space made home to the living quarters as well as a fully-functional kitchen; leaving no utensil missing and a tiny eating table and chairs where we had both our breakfast and supper time meals.
The bedroom overlooked every inch of the mountainous hill while another side gave way to the beautiful lagoon I starred at every chance I got. Not forgetting the quaint table and chairs on the balcony; perfect for a romantic candle-light dinner while star-gazing, or not because it was cold as hell when night fell.
Views for days
Nothing beats a gorgeous sunset like the one we witnessed in Wilderness. Seeing that we were settled on top of the mountain, the sun waved goodbye behind the hill; beautifully reflecting onto the Rondevlei lagoon while the birds sang good-night lullabies.
Of course, it was a heart sore farewell departing from this place but it was certainly will be one of the places I’ll highly recommend to anyone coming to Wilderness.
Right before we were about to leave, something hilarious happened that left Courtney embarrassed for days or even years to come since I’ll be making fun of him but I’ll leave that story for another post.
Until the next adventure.
