As the pelican flies, twenty minutes out of Cape Town and you're in the company of Imvubu: hippos, with herons and a handful of the Cape Floral Kingdom.

Aren't there times when a girl feels like a good commune with nature? A touch of the wild. When driving past the bokkies on the slopes of Hospital Bend in the traffic just doesn't cut it. Such a time it was that prompted me to go and check out the action in Grassy Park. No, not that sort of wild - think eco.

An island bush camp

Take a left and left again off the M5 and there at the end of the road, right in the heart of the Cape Flats, is Rondevlei Nature Reserve. Nearly three hundred hectares of pristine wetland with a healthy vlei that's home to six hippo, several hundred species of birds and plants, six bird hides, a watch tower and an island bushcamp.

And do you know how many adult Capetonians have never been there? Me for one...

Rondevlei rescue

By way of a welcome, a spotted eagle owl blinks at us, yellow eyed from his cage at the entrance to the office. He was rescued by a member of the well-intentioned public when he fell out of his nest as a nipper and brought here to recuperate. He's the only bird in a cage at Rondevlei – aside from those stuffed for posterity in the little on-site Leonard Gill Museum. The rest, living and free, are dive bombing through the air, hanging out in trees or simply bobbing  in and out of the water like a bunch of kids on holiday. Some of them are the migrants who head out for the North in winter, but for most - this is their turf.

Chilled champagne for extra sparkle

Joy Bennet, owner of Imvubu the tourism component of the reserve, is ready to push the boat out onto the vlei to show us more. She's a Grassy Park girl herself, a fully trained horticulturist and when they say she knows her plants, they're not kidding – and her birds, bees, frogs and hippo. She also runs the boma conference facilities (perfect for a bosberad, launch party or wedding) and sees to the camp accommodation where you can chill in glorious isolation on the island that's all of 150 sq m. We're out with her on twinkling water (chilled champagne adding an extra sparkle), reeds swaying Okavango-like in a light breeze chattering with birds – and snoozing hippo.

Enjoy the Pelican brief

A tiny water fowl like a bath tub duck bobs across our wake 'That's a dabchick.' Overhead a massive pelican does a solo fly past, “They don’t usually fly in the wind, uses too much energy for a bird that can weigh up to 13kg.” The pelican lands on a crowded sandy bank, what used to be part of the False Bay coastline back before the vlei's water level was controlled to prevent the flooding of the neighbouring Flats.

He joins a catalogue of other species - pochard ducks, Cape shovellers, blacksmith plovers, darters hanging their wings like washing, “and that one there, the crested grebe keeps it's young under its wing and builds a floating nest.”Seems to be no end to her knowledge!

Nibble and sniff your way through God's 'medicine chest'

On land, Joy does a guided interactive walk where you can nibble and sniff your way through God's own botanical 'medicine chest', and if you book in advance, local caterer Fay Alkana can rustle up a picnic of fynbos flavoured goodies for you to snack on back at the boma. Through Imvubu you can custom make your own day out at Rondevlei, but a good place to start is up at the top of the tower to get a grip on the big picture, then zone in on the small stuff through the giant telescope.

The place to end is overnight in the twelve sleeper cabin on the tiny island which you could be sharing with some resident tortoises, maybe a genet and a quizzy crab or two. Throw out a fishing line from one of the decks or stay up late to watch out for the hippopotamus patrol across the vlei on their regular late night beat to the grassy patch for a midnight feast. 

Imvubu is a member of Fair Trade in Tourism South Africa

Check out our Imvubu gallery.

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