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Moonlight Backpackers Lodge is a small game farm, situated in the valley below the Magaliesberg mountains, which is only ten minutes from Hartbeespoort and Brits, and half an hour from Pretoria. As far as we know, Moonlight Backpackers Lodge is the only backpackers lodge in South Africa which is a game farm.

The area is home to many smaller wildlife species such as jackal, porcupine, mongoose, tree squirrels and a few more. Unfortunately the larger wildlife species have disappeared from the area. We bought land from our neighbors, as well as renting other neighboring farms to have a large enough farm to run as a small game farm. We decided to make a dedicated effort to re-introduce wildlife on our farm.

People in the area started to bring orphaned wildlife to us, which we raised and are now living happily on our farm. We first received a jackal male who we found another orphaned female mate for. They now live in their own one hectare camp on our game farm, where they had their first litter of four cubs on 23 July 2009. See photo left.

One Sunday morning someone left a day old steenbuck female in our garden. We named her Klippies, and raised her until she was old enough to live on her own on the game farm. We then bought a young steenbuck male, who now happily lives on the farm with Klippies.

In 2008 we started fencing the farm with game fencing, which is required to keep the wildlife from breaking through the fences. Clients can view the wildlife from two hides that we built at the waterholes (See photos bottom left). One of the hides looks out over the jackal camp on the one side, and on the other side you look down at one of the waterholes where the animals come to drink. The view of the sunset from the hide, is really spectacular. Most afternoons the sun will be a bright red ball and the sky a sharp orange colour as the sun sets over the mountain. The second hide looks over a waterhole and a feeding area where we put out additional feed.

In 2009 we started buying wildlife from other game farms and introducing them to our farm. All the wildlife photos (left and bottom) were taken on our game farm. You will note that there are springbuck in the photo, which are normally seen south of the Magaliesberg mountains. Many years ago there used to be plenty of springbuck in the "Springbok vlaktes", which is an area north of the Magaliesberg mountains. Moonlight Lodge is on the border of this area. Almost all the springbuck vanished from the area, when people started farming with cattle and crops in the area. Today there are only a small number of springbuck remaining that can survive in this area, due to tick related disease called Hartwater. We have decided to buy a number of these very rare springbuck and re-introduce them to the area. At present we have 11 species of wildlife, with around 100 animals.

We currently have the following species on our farm:

Steenbuck
Duiker
Bushbuck
Nyala
Blue wildebeest
Impala
Springbuck (normal colours)
Springbuck (white)
Springbuck (black)
Blesbuck (normal colours)
Blesbuck (white)

Sable antelope
Fellow deer
Jackal

There are plenty of natural wildlife in our area and on our farm, including a large variety of birds, genet, caracal, porcupine slender mongoose, hares and plenty more.

Home  |  About the lodge  |  Accommodation & rates  |  Wildlife at the lodge  |  Things to do in the area  |  Directions  |  Tours & Safaris  |  Contact us