A luxury African safari getting up close with the wildlife (only right here in Canberra!)
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One of my bucket-list items has been to fly to Kenya to stay in a five-star hotel where giraffes are encouraged to poke their heads in the dining room windows and maybe share your salad.
Last weekend, my daughter and I walked through our luxe hotel suite, past a canopy bed draped in white netting, through large glass doors, and onto a balcony, where Skye and Khamesi, two gentle giraffe giants standing approximately five metres tall with eyelashes as long as the most committed drag queen’s, nibbled carrots from our hands.
Bucket list item most certainly ticked. And the best bit? We never even left Canberra.
Jamala Wildlife Lodge is our city’s most unique accommodation venue, drawing a steady stream of interstate and international visitors and providing an opportunity for a staycation with a difference for locals.
Located within the National Zoo and Aquarium, the Lodge is not only a five-star luxury retreat – it is the only place in Australia where guests share their sleeping quarters with wildlife.
There are six Giraffe Treehouse suites with balconies overlooking Skye and Khamesi, four Jungle Bungalows, where lions, tigers, cheetahs and sun bears take the spacious outdoor enclosures and you take the inside bits – just glass coming between you and them. Then there is uShaka Lodge with seven rooms with views into giant aquarium tanks for the fish, and access to the infinity pool for the human swimmers.
All lodge accommodation is high-end, with four poster beds, enormous bathrooms with animal mosaic feature walls and feature baths, plush sitting rooms to soak up those views onto the spacious animal enclosures, and African-themed décor everywhere you turn.
But it is the animals themselves that take your breath away. It is hard to describe the feeling of walking into a suite, taking a seat on the sofa and watching Mya and Melati snoozing one metre to your right. I should mention at this point that a Gold Coast couple who were staying with the lions had wisely brought their earplugs as a full night’s sleep next to one of these majestic creatures is never guaranteed! I can, however, proudly reveal that Skye and Khamesi were delightfully silent from dusk until dawn.
Once you have had a moment to settle in, it is difficult to comprehend you are in Canberra at all.
Nestled in lush greenery by the most secluded edge of Lake Burley Griffin where it meets with the Molonglo, Jamala’s giraffes can crane their necks for a clear view of Black Mountain Tower, while guests are ensconced in temperate rainforest which looks more like the Congo than Canberra.
The entire Lodge is a labour of love of Maureen and Richard Tindale who bought what was then a twice-liquidated aquarium and small native wildlife park. They have spent the last 27 years building the zoo into a world-class experience for both animals and visitors.
The five-star lodge accommodation helps subsidise the enormous work the Tindale family has ploughed into the conservation field (a tour of the zoo will reveal how many of the animals are rescued, endangered or part of international breeding programs for threatened species).
Jamala has won numerous awards, from Trip Advisor Traveller’s Choice awards (putting it in the top 10 per cent globally) to Style Magazine Best Australian Bath with a View – because looking out into the eyes of Nairibi the lion while you soak is surely more iconic than any garden, beach or vista on offer.
While ensuring you have time in your luxury digs getting to know your near neighbours is a highlight of the Jamala experience, there is also ample opportunity to enjoy other aspects of the zoo, set across 19 hectares of lush ground. Lodge guests have the opportunity to join several special small group animal experiences, of which meeting a mob of cheeky meerkats places second only the giraffes. I swear the cute aggression I experienced watching my daughter hand-feed fly pupae to Sergei and his meerkat sons was off the charts.
Just as every effort is made to source the perfect animal food, hungry Jamala guests are in for a culinary treat. With all meals included in your overnight stay package, the Lodge has a focus on elevating the dining experience. This begins with its location.
Dinner is served in an otherworldly “Dining Cave” where two enormous and rare white lion siblings Jake and Mishka also come to sup.
Guest partake of cocktails on a balcony overlooking a vista of lion habitat in the late afternoon, while the keepers gently encourage the lions up the hill with a promise of an enormous bone each. They pass through a passageway into a glassed-off mini-cave. It truly is hard to describe the sight of these apex predators crunching through their version of an aperitif (horse bones as it turns out), nor the sound.
Thankfully, the food that arrives at the table is delicious, beautifully presented, and cooked!
With a full menu featuring modern Australian-with-an-African-slant cuisine, diners can choose from a range of entrées, mains, and desserts. I delight in a seafood platter of oysters, prawn cocktail, soft-shelled crab and sashimi. While Amanda and Sophia choose a roasted lamb rack and Zanzibar spatchcock for mains, I opt for a Madagascan vegetable and tofu curry and my daughter gets a risotto with zucchini flowers and goat’s cheese.
The desserts are insta-worthy, including a white chocolate dome filled with chocolate mousse and fresh berries and a pavlova roulade. Edible flowers abound and the presentation is beautiful. Good wines flow freely. Of course, I opt for the cheese platter, and by the end of the meal, I stagger back to our suite, just as Jake and Mishka mosey back down the hill to settle in for the night.
The next morning, after a solid sleep and the sublime experience of watching the sunrise with the giraffes, we return to our cave for a hearty serving of breakfast. Again there are options to suit every appetite. From a coconut porridge with fruit to smashed avo on toast with eggs and mushrooms to a trout omelette and hotcakes with maple syrup. We all note that Jamala servings are on the larger size and the coffee is strong and in keeping with the safari theme, is served in a zebra-striped cup with a lion’s face in the cappuccino froth.
We spend the morning experiencing more animal encounters, including hand-feeding banana to the most gentle lemurs, stroking the inner thigh of a two-tonne white rhino named Echo, and patting the very chilled emu, Moo, who has been living at the zoo since 1992 and quickly dispels my life-long aversion to emus.
All too soon, it is time to check out. Once we pass through the lodge gates, the sight, sounds and smells of the animals slowly recede. The tropical growth changes to gums, and we find ourselves no longer in Africa but on Lady Denman Drive. It feels like an actual world away from the magic of Jamala. But easy to stage a return safari visit.
The HerCanberra team were guests of Jamala but these opinions are the author’s own.
