Those of you who follow me on Instagram may have noticed I’ve been hiking a lot lately. I’ve always loved to hike. But for some reason — maybe because I now have a car that can take me to any hiking trail in South Africa — I’ve started wanting to hike a lot more. So when Ezemvelo, a privately owned nature reserve less than two hours from Joburg, invited Thorsten and me to come check out their hiking trails a few weeks ago, I was excited to check it out.

Ezemvelo is owned by the Maharishi Invisibility Institute, a non-profit organization based in downtown Joburg that focuses on consciousness-based education for youth of all ages. This peaked my interest; in addition to its mission as a hiking/camping destination and game reserve open to the public, Ezemvelo also hosts Maharishi students for various programs. Maharishi students practice transcendental meditation and yoga as part of their studies and Ezemvelo must be a great place to do that.

A Weekend at Ezemvelo: Top Tips

One of the best things about Ezemvelo is its proximity to Joburg: It’s about an hour and 45 minutes from our house in Brixton, and closer to those living east and north of town (closer still to Pretoria). Thorsten and I left Joburg at about 1:30 p.m. on a Friday, and despite hectic afternoon traffic we still reached the reserve before 3:30 p.m.

The reserve offers both self-catering chalets and a camp site for visitors. The chalets cost R990 per night for two people and camping costs R330. We stayed in the chalets, which are not fancy but perfectly adequate for a weekend away.

While you could theoretically visit Ezemvelo as a day trip and skip the overnight stay, I wouldn’t recommend that — this reserve is at its best at sunrise and sunset, and the only way to experience it at those times is to stay overnight.

The other great thing about Ezemvelo is the wildlife. This is a serious game reserve with hundreds of bird species and dozens of mammals and reptiles. We didn’t do an organized game drive because we were too exhausted from hiking (more on that in a moment), but we saw tons of animals as we walked — including a giant monitor lizard who crossed the trail right in front of us — which was really cool.

If I go to Ezemvelo again I’ll definitely do a game drive, as it’s possible to see rare animals like brown hyena (who we heard howling but didn’t see) and aardwolf.

A couple of other important notes and pieces of advice:

1) This is Ezemvelo Nature Reserve and NOT Ezemvelo KZN Wildlife, the provincial organization that runs wildlife reserves in South Africa’s KwaZulu Natal province.

2) While some dirt-road driving is required, you don’t need a 4×4 to reach this reserve.

3) Ezemvelo’s landscape was very green when we were there in January, but it would look quite different (much browner) during the winter dry season. I think winter would still be a nice time to hike there though, as it would be cooler during the day.

4) The hiking trails at Ezemvelo are mostly out in the open with very little shade. Start early and load up on sunblock, water, and snacks.

5) Be prepared to walk through a bit of mud and water during summer — there are some marshy areas.

6) Ezemvelo is very close to the spectacular Anton Smit Sculpture Park, which is worth a stop if you’ve never been.

Hiking at Ezemvelo

The reserve offers 5-kilometer, 15-kilometer, and 21-kilometer hiking trails. We set out at 6:00 a.m. on Saturday morning, unsure yet which trail we wanted to do, but wound up hiking about 19 kilometers (the 21-kilometer route minus about two kilometers that we skipped at the beginning). I was ridiculously exhausted by the end but really glad we did the long route — it was really, really beautiful and at least now I know what I’m capable of.

A long section of the hike went along a small river, with nice views and rock formations along the bank. There were also bits of shade and some pretty rocks pools to walk along.

The final third of the hike was a brutal yet beautiful jaunt over some big hills and across the grassland, back to camp. The hike took us a little more than six hours in total — I hadn’t felt that tired in a very long time.

The next morning, because we are insane, we got up at 5:00 a.m. to do the five-kilometer hike and get out onto the trail before the sun came up. I was rewarded with some really spectacular morning light.

One more tip: Tanya Pembroke of My Hiking Logbook wrote a great review of Ezemvelo on her Facebook page, which includes lots of interesting details that my post doesn’t cover. I highly recommend following Tanya’s page for tons of useful recommendations about hiking in Gauteng province and surrounds. (Unfortunately I can’t link to the actual review, because Facebook is lame, but you can find it by scrolling down the page to Tanya’s Ezemvelo post on 6 January 2024.)

Expect more 2Summers hiking posts in the near future.

My stay at Ezemvelo was complimentary. Opinions expressed are mine.