Exclusive-use in the Timbavati, Greater Kruger - a team spoil, a site inspection, and a safari jol with Chris Stamper

There’s a particular kind of freedom that only comes with having a slice of the Timbavati entirely to yourself. No set drive times. No dinner gong. No sharing a sighting with five other vehicles. Just your people, the wild heart of the Greater Kruger, and a guide who reads the bush like a favourite book.

Two weeks ago, a good chunk of the BHS team packed up beanies, buffs and a healthy thirst for gin and tonics and pointed the vehicles north into the Timbavati Private Nature Reserve for a few days at Chimani Camp. Part team spoil, part site inspection, entirely unforgettable. Here’s how it went.

Checking In (and Immediately Switching Off)

We rolled into camp around midday to a lunch spread and that immediate sense of exhale you get when a place just works. Some of the team set up a working station (yes, we did technically "work"), while the rest wandered into the garden to bird, because at Chimani, the wildlife starts before you’ve even unpacked. Geraldine and Debbie were soon photographing an African barred owlet, and Brett arrived with his daughters, all of them squinting up at a Scops owl doing its very best impression of a broken branch.

Chimani sits raised above the woodland on the western edge of the Timbavati, with long views across the Greater Kruger and toward the distant escarpment. Four comfortable double rooms, one an interleading unit that’s ideal for families, plus a big communal kitchen, a lounge built around a fireplace, an outdoor dining area, a firepit and boma, and a pool. Exclusive use, which is the whole point: the camp is yours.

And here’s the thing worth saying plainly: this is comfortable luxury, not over-the-top. The rooms are lovely, and the beds are excellent, but Chimani was never trying to dazzle you with shiny finishes. That’s by design. Chris and Lex have deliberately built a product that strips things back to what actually matters: the wildlife. You don’t come for the thread count… although it’s very high and doesn’t disappoint. You come for what’s waiting beyond the deck.

Not a Ferrari Safari: The Chris Stamper Difference

If there’s one thing that turns a good safari into a great one, it’s the person in the driver’s seat. We were hosted by Chris Stamper, and in all our years of doing this, few guides have matched his attention to detail. He anticipated everything. At every stop, he positioned the vehicle so we’d get the light, the angle, the image. This was never a "Ferrari safari" that flat-out dash from one Big Five tick to the next. Chris planned our drives.

Better still, he made us part of the puzzle. We’d stop, cut the engine, and listen, for an alarm call, for a distant roar, for the small tells the bush gives away if you’re patient enough. You could watch him piecing it together in real time, and somehow that made every sighting feel earned.

He works alongside his partner Lex Hes, an industry legend and the author of The Leopards of Londolozi - who was guiding a second vehicle from neighbouring Nyala Camp. Watching the two of them work a sighting together, radios low and unhurried, is a small masterclass in how it’s meant to be done.

“It wasn’t just another Ferrari safari. Chris made us part of the tracking… stopping, listening, watching him put the pieces together.”

A Little Something for the Bird Nerds

A quick word for our fellow bird lovers, because this deserves its own mention. Chris doesn’t just know his birds. he knows his calls, picking species out of the bush by ear before you’ve even lifted your binos. As luck would have it, the BHS team is a fairly feathered bunch too, so drives came with a running, good-natured contest to spot, identify and add to the list. Binos up, field guides open, the odd triumphant "got it!" from the back row. We kept a citizen-science bird list ticking over on BirdLasser the whole trip, and it grew impressively fat by checkout. Whether you’re a serious twitcher or just like a pretty roller, Chimani delivers.

The Main Event: Everything the Timbavati Does Best

And then there’s the wildlife, the reason you’re really here, and the reason Chris and Lex built the camp the way they did. The Timbavati delivered, and then some.  

the way Chris and Lex have set up this camp experience the way they have

The buffalo were a story in themselves. We found the big herds you hope for out here, a slow-moving grey tide across the plains. But this wasn’t just parking up to watch them graze. We caught them crossing a river at full tilt, a thundering, dust-and-water chaos of horns and hooves that had the whole vehicle wide-eyed.

The plains game was everywhere too,  towers of giraffe drifting between the trees, zebra, wildebeest, impala at every turn. The elephant sightings were also exceptional: breeding herds moving through the bush with that unhurried, ancient calm, youngsters testing their trunks, the whole scene close and unbothered by us.

The cats didn’t disappoint either. On our first full morning, Chris worked with Lex to track down five lionesses, eventually finding them asleep in the golden early light - a moment we marked the proper way, with a coffee stop beneath a baobab, before heading back for meetings and breakfast (the "site inspection" part of the trip, we promise). Later, the full Big Five came together, and the standout belonged to Geraldine: perched on the tracker seat as a pride walked calmly past, close enough to feel the quiet. The next morning we followed a male lion on foot-of-the-tyre pace through the bush all the way toward Nyala Camp, picking up another lioness along the way.

Sundowners, Surprises and Steak Straight off the Flames

If you think exclusive-use means roughing it, our very first evening will set you straight. Sundowners that night turned out to be a full-blown surprise: the team had gone ahead into the riverbed, built a fire, and were cooking a biltong steak over the open flames… slicing it and serving it to us straight off the coals as the light went gold. Warm, smoky, unforgettable, and about as special and unique as a sundowner gets. Nobody saw it coming, which was exactly the point.

The rest of the evenings kept that same easy magic. Braaied rump and gin and tonics flowing, everyone gathered around a fire, stories doing the rounds… Geraldine on Zambia, Jo on malaria and mango flies, Mike on the unforgettable saga of a horse fly in his ear. The food throughout was honest, delicious South African cooking, the kind you’d actually want to come home to.

That’s really the magic of Chimani. Not shiny finishes but attention to detail, personalisation and flexibility in a completely comfortable setting. It’s the kind of place we send families and groups knowing they’ll get five-star treatment that still, somehow, feels like home.

A Night to Remember at Chimani

I was lucky enough to spend a night in Chimani’s open hide overlooking the dam. It’s not part of the usual guest experience, but it’s certainly a night I’ll remember forever. A male leopard walked beneath our beds, a white rhino took a midnight dip, and a rare black rhino appeared just metres away. Needless to say, not much sleeping happened after that.

Read the full story: A Night in the Hide at Chimani →

The BHS Take

Chimani is exclusive-use done right… no schedule, no set activities, just flexible fun for your group in the hands of a guiding team at the very top of their craft. What Chris and Lex have built is refreshingly clear about what it is: comfortable, unpretentious, and utterly wildlife-first. Back to the basics that actually matter in the Timbavati. For a family or a group of friends who want the Greater Kruger entirely to themselves, it’s hard to beat.

Dreaming of your own Timbavati escape? Get in touch with the BHS team - we’ll match you to the right camp and craft the whole journey around you.