Golf Safari — Pretoria to Pretoria
Pretoria → Pretoria (circular)
The Rovos Rail Golf Safari is a ten-day, 2,100-kilometre circular journey departing and returning to Pretoria that traces an extraordinary arc through South Africa's most dramatic landscapes — the bushveld plains of the Pilanesberg, the mist-draped Drakensberg foothills, the sun-warmed KwaZulu-Natal coast, the primeval game country of Zululand and Kruger, the green highlands of eSwatini, and the trout streams of Mpumalanga. Designed with equal care for both golfers and non-golfers, it is one of the world's rare journeys where the fairway and the game drive exist side by side.
Onboard the Pride of Africa — widely regarded as the most luxurious train in the world — guests travel in superbly appointed Pullman, Deluxe, or Royal Suites, dine on silver-service cuisine prepared with fresh South African produce, and wake each morning to ever-changing scenery rolling past panoramic windows. Every excursion, meal, beverage, and green fee is included, so the entire journey unfolds without a single incidental expense.
This is a journey for those who wish to play championship golf on courses rated among Africa's finest, or to immerse themselves in big-five game drives, Boer War battlefield history, Swazi cultural encounters, fly-fishing demonstrations, and artisan craft centres — or, ideally, a little of both. Whether your passion is a perfect iron shot at Sun City's Gary Player Course or watching white rhino amble through Hluhluwe-iMfolozi, the Golf Safari delivers it aboard one of the most iconic trains on earth.
- ✦Golf on five championship courses including Gary Player at Sun City and Durban Country Club
- ✦Dedicated non-golfer programme: Big Five game drives, battlefields, and cultural experiences
- ✦Hluhluwe-iMfolozi — Africa's oldest game reserve and white rhino heartland
- ✦Full-day Kruger National Park game drive entering through the Malelane Gate
- ✦Kingdom of eSwatini: Mkhaya Reserve black rhino encounter and Swazi Candles artisan visit
- ✦Boer War battlefield history at Spionkop with panoramic Drakensberg views
- ✦Dullstroom Highlands: fly-fishing, whisky distillery, and highland golf at altitude
Day-by-Day Itinerary
Day 1 — Pretoria: Departure
Guests board at the historic Rovos Rail Station in Pretoria's Capital Park at noon. Champagne is served on the platform as porters attend to luggage and stewards escort passengers to their suites. The train departs south-westward and lunch is served in the dining car as the city skyline gives way to the rolling Highveld grasslands. Afternoon tea at 16:30 is followed by a formal dinner — the first of nine — at 19:30. The dress code aboard the Pride of Africa is smart casual for lunches and formal (jacket and tie / evening wear) for dinners, with themed costume evenings woven into the programme.
Day 2 — Pilanesberg: Game Drive or Golf at Sun City
Non-golfers transfer at 07:45 to Sun City and on to the Pilanesberg National Park, a malaria-free Big Five reserve nestled inside an ancient volcanic crater. The morning game drive offers outstanding wildlife viewing — elephant, lion, rhino, leopard, and buffalo roam the 550-square-kilometre reserve. Guests lunch with golfers at Sun City before an afternoon at leisure exploring the resort's Lost City complex, before returning to the train by 17:30.
Golfers are transferred at 06:00 to either the legendary Gary Player Country Club (venue of the Nedbank Golf Challenge) or the Lost City Golf Course — both set against the Pilanesberg hills — for an early tee-off, on-course lunch, and an afternoon round. The Gary Player course, designed by the South African golfing legend himself, is consistently rated among Africa's top ten.
Day 3 — En Route: Highveld to KwaZulu-Natal
A full day aboard the train as the Pride of Africa traverses the Highveld and begins its descent toward the Drakensberg escarpment. The route passes Majuba Hill — site of a pivotal British defeat in the First Anglo-Boer War — and the historic town of Newcastle, with its distinctive Hindu temple. The coalfields and mining landscape around Glencoe roll past in the afternoon. All meals are taken onboard; the themed dress code for dinner is African or Smart Casual. Guests are invited to unwind in their suites, linger over South African wines in the lounge, or simply watch the dramatic landscape from the observation car.
Day 4 — Spionkop: Battlefield & Lodge or Champagne Sports Resort
Non-golfers transfer to the shores of Spionkop Dam and the nearby Spionkop Lodge, set within an 11,000-acre private reserve. A knowledgeable historian delivers a riveting presentation on the Battle of Spionkop (January 1900), one of the bloodiest engagements of the Second Anglo-Boer War, overlooking the very hill where British and Boer forces fought. After lunch at the lodge, guests may take a game drive through the reserve — habitat for white rhino, giraffe, and a wealth of birdlife — or simply relax on the veranda overlooking the dam.
Golfers travel 60 minutes through the foothills of the Drakensberg to Champagne Sports Resort, whose golf course at 1,700 metres above sea level offers spectacular mountain scenery, thin air that adds yards to every drive, and a challenging layout that rewards precision over power.
Day 5 — Durban: City Tour, Botanical Gardens & Coastal Golf
Arriving on the KwaZulu-Natal coast, non-golfers enjoy a morning city tour of Durban — South Africa's busiest port and one of its most vibrant cities — taking in the golden beachfront, the colourful Victoria Street Indian Market, and the celebrated Durban Botanic Gardens, the oldest surviving botanic garden in Africa (established 1851) and famous for its cycad collection. Lunch is served at a beachfront restaurant in the upmarket suburb of Umhlanga.
Golfers play one of three iconic coastal courses: the Durban Country Club — a links-style course founded in 1892 and rated among the world's top 100 — Mount Edgecombe, or Cotswold Downs. All guests must provide their passport to the Train Manager today in preparation for border crossings ahead. Formal dinner is served as the train heads north into Zululand.
Day 6 — Hluhluwe-iMfolozi: Africa's Oldest Reserve
Guests rise early for a 05:00 continental breakfast before a 30-minute transfer to Hluhluwe-iMfolozi Park, the oldest proclaimed game reserve in Africa, established in 1895. The 960-square-kilometre reserve is hilly and biologically diverse, and is world-famous for its leading role in saving the southern white rhino from extinction. Morning game drives often produce sightings of all Big Five — white and black rhino, elephant, lion, leopard, and buffalo — along with wild dog, cheetah, and over 340 bird species. By 10:30 guests return to the train, where lunch is served as the Pride of Africa crosses the border formalities into the Kingdom of eSwatini.
Day 7 — eSwatini: Royal Swazi Golf or Mkhaya Reserve & Swazi Candles
Non-golfers begin the day at Mkhaya Game Reserve, one of eSwatini's most exclusive private reserves, renowned for its black rhino and Nguni cattle conservation. Open Land Rovers allow close-up encounters with rhino, elephant, and giraffe in an exceptionally intimate setting. Guests then visit Swazi Candles, a celebrated artisan complex in Malkerns, where skilled craftspeople create extraordinary hand-poured candles in wildlife and abstract forms — one of eSwatini's most beloved cultural landmarks. Lunch and curio shopping complete the morning before rejoining the train or meeting golfers at the Royal Swazi.
Golfers play the Royal Swazi Golf Course, a beautifully maintained 18-hole championship layout set in the Ezulwini Valley, known as the Valley of Heaven, with views of the Mdzimba Mountains. After returning to the train by 16:00, the Pride of Africa completes border formalities back into South Africa, crossing into Mpumalanga for the journey to Malelane.
Day 8 — Kruger National Park: Full-Day Game Drive
An early 05:30 breakfast precedes a full-day adventure in the Kruger National Park, South Africa's premier wildlife destination and one of Africa's greatest conservation areas — stretching nearly 350 kilometres from north to south and home to over 147 mammal species, 500 bird species, and 114 reptile species. Entering through the Malelane Gate in the south of the park, open game-viewing vehicles traverse the savanna plains in search of lion prides, leopard, elephant herds, and the vast buffalo aggregations for which southern Kruger is renowned. Tea is served in the bush, and a bush lunch at a camp provides a chance to spot hippo and crocodile along the Crocodile River. Guests return to the train by 15:00, after which the Pride of Africa climbs the dramatic Drakensberg escarpment westward in the evening light. Formal dinner is served as the train ascends through the highlands.
Day 9 — Dullstroom: Fly-Fishing, Whisky & Highland Gate Golf
Non-golfers spend the morning at the elegant Walkerson's Hotel near Dullstroom, a celebrated trout-fishing retreat in South Africa's Mpumalanga Highlands. A resident guide delivers an engaging fly-fishing presentation on the hotel's stocked dams, giving guests an introduction to casting technique and the art of reading trout water. After lunch, the afternoon is devoted to Dullstroom village itself — South Africa's trout and whisky capital — including a tour of the Dullstroom Distillery and a visit to the town's eclectic Arts & Crafts Centre, with its galleries of locally made pottery, textiles, and artworks. Dinner is a themed 1920s evening aboard the train — one of the journey's signature social events.
Golfers play Highland Gate Golf & Trout Estate, a highly regarded 18-hole course at altitude, designed to weave through indigenous forest and past trout-filled lakes, offering some of the most scenic golf in Mpumalanga.
Day 10 — Return to Pretoria
The Pride of Africa rolls into the Rovos Rail Station in Pretoria at approximately 10:00, completing the 2,100-kilometre circular journey. Breakfast is served as guests share memories over coffee in the dining car. Onboard staff assist with luggage and onward transfers, concluding one of the most richly varied luxury train journeys in the world.
Destinations & Highlights
Pilanesberg National Park & Sun City
The Pilanesberg National Park occupies a 550-square-kilometre alkaline ring complex formed by a 1.2-billion-year-old volcano — one of the most distinctive geological formations on earth. Since its establishment in 1979 and the ambitious Operation Genesis that reintroduced 6,000 animals, it has become a malaria-free Big Five reserve of extraordinary quality. The adjacent Sun City resort — developed by Sol Kerzner in the late 1970s — hosts the Gary Player Country Club, a globally celebrated course that has hosted the Million Dollar Challenge and Nedbank Golf Challenge for decades, played by every major professional golfer of the modern era.
Spionkop & the Anglo-Boer War Battlefields
Spionkop, in the foothills of the Drakensberg, was the scene of one of the most costly British engagements of the Second Anglo-Boer War (24–25 January 1900). Over 1,700 men were killed or wounded on a single hilltop in a single night, among them a young war correspondent named Winston Churchill and a stretcher-bearer named Mohandas Gandhi. Today the battlefield is a place of quiet power, its trenches still visible, and the panorama from the summit looking out over the Tugela River valley unchanged from that terrible morning. The nearby Champagne Sports Resort lies in the shadow of the Drakensberg's Cathedral Peak range, at altitudes that produce some of the finest highland golf in the southern hemisphere.
Durban
Durban is South Africa's third-largest city and busiest port, shaped by decades of Indian Ocean trade, Zulu heritage, and Indian migration — the largest Indian diaspora community outside India arrived here as indentured labourers in the nineteenth century and left an indelible cultural imprint. The Golden Mile beachfront, the extraordinary Victoria Street Indian Market, and the Durban Botanic Gardens — Africa's oldest surviving garden, internationally significant for its cycad collection — are the city's great public treasures. The Durban Country Club, founded 1892, is one of Africa's most historic golf venues, its links-style layout battered by warm coastal winds from Durban Bay.
Hluhluwe-iMfolozi Park
Established in 1895, Hluhluwe-iMfolozi is the oldest proclaimed game reserve in Africa — predating Kruger by two years — and occupies 960 square kilometres of hilly thornveld and riverine forest in northern KwaZulu-Natal. Its global significance rests on its role in rescuing the southern white rhino: from fewer than 50 individuals in the 1890s, the reserve's Operation Rhino programme grew the population to over 20,000 worldwide. The park today supports all Big Five alongside wild dog, cheetah, and a remarkable diversity of birds. The rugged, intimate terrain makes game viewing feel exploratory rather than managed — a genuinely wild African experience.
The Kingdom of eSwatini
The landlocked Kingdom of eSwatini (formerly Swaziland) is one of Africa's last absolute monarchies and one of its most culturally distinctive nations. The fertile Ezulwini Valley — 'Valley of Heaven' — is home to Mkhaya Game Reserve, which specialises in black rhino and elephant conservation in an exclusivity rarely matched anywhere on the continent. The valley's Swazi Candles complex has grown into an international artisan landmark, its hand-poured wildlife candles exported worldwide. The Royal Swazi Golf Course, set against the Mdzimba Mountains, offers championship golf in a setting of rare beauty.
Kruger National Park
Kruger National Park is Africa's most celebrated wildlife reserve — nearly two million hectares of protected savanna stretching from the Crocodile River in the south to the Limpopo in the north. Established in 1898 by President Paul Kruger, it protects over 147 mammal species, 500 bird species, 114 reptile species, and 49 fish species. The southern section, accessed through the Malelane Gate, is particularly productive for lion, leopard, and the enormous buffalo herds that crowd the Crocodile River. Bordering Kruger, the private reserve at Leopard Creek hosts one of South Africa's most dramatic golf holes — played alongside a hippo-filled water hazard where crocodiles are a genuine lateral water hazard concern.
Dullstroom & the Mpumalanga Highlands
Dullstroom — South Africa's trout capital — sits at 2,100 metres above sea level in the Mpumalanga Highlands, a landscape of cold streams, misty mornings, and indigenous highland forest. Named by a homesick Dutch settler for his home town of Dulst, it has evolved into one of South Africa's most charming village destinations: a warren of craft galleries, artisan food producers, the celebrated Dullstroom Distillery, and fly-fishing waters rated among the finest in the southern hemisphere. Highland Gate Golf & Trout Estate winds through this elevated landscape, offering a course of exceptional scenic quality at altitude.