Great Tsau Hill

The camp is built at the foot of the Great Tsau Hill in a 40,000-hectare private concession, within the Central Kalahari Game Reserve. The Great Tsau Hill is the only topographical relief in the entire 50,000km2 Central Kalahari Game Reserve, offering spectacular panoramic views over the savannah.

Great Tsau Hill offers 10 tented rooms, which accommodate up to 2 guests. There are small en-suite bathrooms with a bucket shower and WC. There are also larger ablutions with showers available for use during the day. All rooms
have a private veranda, with views of the bush. All beds have a mosquito net and an insect repellent spray is available in the rooms.

The Central Kalahari Game Reserve offers diverse animal and plant life in the semi-arid land, making it an ideal complement to the rest of the Roots & Journeys collection. Look out for brown hyena, aardvark, Kalahari lions, aardwolves, gemsbok, springbok and bat-eared foxes.

Adventures are focused on game drives, night drives, authentic bushmen experiences, e-bike safaris, and walking trails, with the option to camp out at one of the fly camps or star beds. There are plenty of unique and wonderful experiences on offer at Great Tsau Hill to fill your days, but the pace is relaxed and there is no fixed itinerary. If you spot some rarely-seen game you want to spend the afternoon tracking or wish to spend longer cooling off in the natural pool that’s nestled into the rock formations of Great Tsau Hill, you can. Your time is your own and we are there to help you make the most of what will be the trip of a lifetime to a location you’ll never forget.

About the Central Kalahari Game Reserve

The Bushmen, or San, have inhabited the lands for thousands of years since they roamed the area as nomadic hunters. However, since the mid-1990s the Botswana government has tried to relocate the Bushmen from the reserve, claiming they were a drain on financial resources despite revenues from tourism. In 1997, three quarters of the entire San population were relocated from the reserve, and in October 2005 the government had resumed the forced relocation into resettlement camps outside of the park leaving only about 250 permanent occupiers. In 2006 a Botswana court proclaimed the eviction illegal and affirmed the Bushmen's right to return to living in the reserve. However, as of 2015 most Bushmen are blocked from access to their traditional lands in the reserve. A nationwide ban on hunting made it illegal for the Bushmen to practice their traditional hunter-gatherer lifestyle, despite allowing private game ranches to provide hunting opportunities for tourists.

In 2014 a diamond mine operated by Gem Diamonds opened in the southeast portion of the reserve. The company estimated that the mine could yield $4.9 billion worth of diamonds. The Rapaport Diamond Report, a diamond-industry pricing guide, stated, "Ghaghoo's launch was not without controversy given its location on the ancestral land of the Bushmen".

A huge bush fire in and around the park in the middle of September 2008 burnt around 80 per cent of the reserve. The origin of the fire remains unknown.

This park contains wildlife such as giraffe, elephant, white rhinoceros, Cape buffalo, spotted hyena, brown hyena, honey badger, meerkat, yellow mongoose, warthog, cheetah, caracal, Cape wild dog, black-backed jackal, bat-eared fox, cape fox, leopard, lion, wildebeest, zebra, eland, sable antelope, gemsbok, springbok, steenbok, impala, greater kudu, aardvark, cape ground squirrel, cape hare, cape porcupine, chacma baboon, red hartebeest and ostrich. The land is mostly flat, and gently undulating covered with bush and grasses covering the sand dunes, and areas of larger trees. Many of the river valleys are fossilized with salt pans. Four fossilized rivers meander through the reserve including Deception Valley which began to form around 16,000 years ago.