Singita Castleton

The 6 guest cottages at Singita Castleton blend in with the rural surroundings, with a rural farm feeling. Inside the cottages are warm and cosy, with a rustic cottage charm which is accentuated by exposed beams, wooden furniture, and whitewashed walls. The cottage is spacious and full of bright light which fills the room through wide windows.

A large cosy double bed sits in the centre of the cottage, covered in warm duvets and plush pillows. The bed sits in front of a feature wall which is lined with vintage botanical pictures. A neutral colour palette running throughout the cottage makes the space feel elegant and chic. All cottages come with their own ensuite bathroom. This includes double hand-basins on a rustic wooden vanity, a deep claw-footed bathtub, and a separate toilet and rainfall shower, which can be accessed through modern French doors.

Two of the six cottages are interleading, making them perfect for a family who wish to stay together.

Guests can enjoy meals in the main dining room of Singita Castleton, which carries on the rustic cottage theme of the cottages. Feast on refreshing breakfasts before heading out for the day or enjoy a light and fresh lunch under the shade of indigenous trees. Dinner can be eaten around the boma area, surrounded by the endless rolling plains of the bushveld and warming crackling fires.

The food is expertly prepared by creative and professional chefs, and guests have the opportunity to visit the wine cellar and choose their own wine to pair with their food.

While staying at Singita Castleton, guests have access to their own private safari vehicle. Accompanied by a professional guide and ranger, guests can enjoy a personalised safari through the bush, being driven to all the best viewing spots of the reserve.

Your guides will know where to go to find lions, elephants, and hippos, and will be able to drive you to the perfect spot for you to capture the perfect picture.

With a friendly and knowledgeable guide explore the Sabi Sands on foot. Immerse yourself in the wild surroundings, and get up close and personal with some of the smaller workings of the reserve. Your guide will be able to point out things which may be missed by the untrained eye, such as micro-ecosystems and animal tracks.

There are many ways to indulge in some self-care and stay fit at Singita Castleton. Guests can begin their day with a quick workout in the fully equipped gym, before cooling down with a refreshing dip in the sparkling swimming pool. Massages are available in the spa room, where guests can enjoy a stress-relieving massage while surrounded by fresh air and vivid indigenous woodland. A tennis court is also available for guests who wish to have a friendly game to start the day.

The cottage style kitchen at Singita Castleton is open to guests, meaning guests can see their food being prepared and they can also enjoy a cooking class. This activity is also suitable for children who can learn the art of cooking and presenting delicious food.

A humid candle-lit private wine cellar at Singita Castleton holds some of the best vintage wines that South Africa has to offer. There are limited release wines in the wine cellar that are the only kind in the world, and guests can purchase these wines, either to be taken home or to be delivered to their suite. Guests can arrange to have a private wine tasting experience where you will be able to try some of these unique, vintage wines.

Whatever your heart desires can most likely be found in the boutique and gallery at Singita Castleton. Authentic man-made furniture, artefacts from all over Africa, branded safari wear and jewellery handmade by local craftsmen are some of the things you will find here. With worldwide shipping, you don’t even have to worry about space in your suitcase as it can be delivered straight to your home.

Guests can visit the Sabi Sands Canine Unit for a chance to join them on one of their tracking exercises. These dogs do important work finding illegal hunters and protecting the diverse wildlife in the Sabi Sands Game Reserve. A donation is required with this activity, and the money goes into the program, to train more dogs to complete this important work.

Gaze up at the unpolluted night sky and marvel at the ethereal beauty of it. There is no experience like looking up at the sky and seeing it blanketed with stars and far away planets. See if you can spot the centre of the milky way, which is visible in the Southern hemisphere, or the southern pointers.

The Singita Lowveld Trust works in South Africa to support a whole range of conservation projects with all sorts of aims. They support wildlife research, help with land management, towards community development projects, as well as working with anti-poaching initiates and early childhood development.

One of their partners is the NGO Panthera which works to protect and reduce the poaching of leopards for their fur. To protect the few 5000 leopards which are left, they initiated the ‘Furs for Life’ project which created the alternative high-quality faux fur. Working with local Shembe leaders, these furs are gaining acceptance as alternatives to real leopard furs.

Singita is also partnered with the Grumeti Fund in Tanzania and the Malilangwe Trust in Zimbabwe which helps to support conservation and community efforts using funds from Singita guests in the Serengeti ecosystem in Tanzania, and for community development projects and conservation in Zimbabwe.

In partnership with other leading ecotourism operators, Singita has helped to launch The Lionscape Coalition. Now officially classified as vulnerable, lions are another species which need major protection as numbers have dropped dramatically in recent years. The decline can be contributed to things such as illegal wildlife trade, habitat loss, poaching and human-wildlife conflict. Their existence is key to the whole ecosystem, making ‘their conservation an ecological imperative.’

Helping to protect their habitat is just the first step in a much wider programme, however, if they have sufficient numbers of prey and a safe habitat they will thrive. Local communities are educated on their importance and the need to live peacefully side by side with these magnificent creatures.

Singita is involved in many projects and initiatives to help protect the wonderful biodiversity that surrounds their lodges. Working with the Grumeti Fund, Singita is helping to re-establish a population of eastern black rhino to be returned to the western Serengeti which will, in turn, re-establish the greater Serengeti-Mara’s rhino population. This project is going from strength to strength and has already resulted in the birth of numerous black rhino calves.

Rhino reintroduction has also been a major aim of The Malilangwe Trust, with them having purchased 28 black rhinos and 15 white rhinos and relocating them to South Africa. highly successful, this project is now leading to the relocation of some of its rhinos to other reserves in Africa, to work the same magic on local rhino populations.

To help restore previously forested land, Singita works with local communities to provide viable alternatives to farming on cleared land. The Akarabo Nursery has so far had 60,000 saplings grown and propagated, with a team regularly monitoring the health of the saplings. Guests can even plant their own indigenous tree which will, in time, be planted on the cleared land in an effort to re-establish the natural buffer zone which lies between agricultural lands and the rainforests.

In an effort to re-establish delicate native orchids to this area, an Orchid Project has been created. These orchids are vital to the biodiversity and habitat of the Singita Volcanoes National Park, and there are numerous species of orchids only found in this region. Singita helps this project by actively supporting the reforestation efforts around their properties.

To further protect the biodiversity of the areas in which Singita operate they support various anti-poaching initiatives. Illegal poaching and hunting is still a real threat to species such as rhino and elephant who are persecuted for their horns and tusks. The Grumeti Fund have their own anti-poaching unit which is bolstered by some innovative technology such as drones and night vision equipment. Grumeti also funds its own canine unit to help with the anti-poaching efforts. There is also a canine unit which patrols the area around Singita’s first property in Sabi Sands, to help track and find any illegal hunters.

Partnered with the Grumeti Fund, the Singita Lowveld Trust and the Malilangwe Trust means that Singita is involved in a range of community upliftment projects throughout South Africa, Tanzania and Zimbabwe. One such project is the Singita Community Culinary School which helps offer young people who are interested in becoming chefs the education to gain the skillset which will be needed from them. These schools are in South Africa, Rwanda and Tanzania and offer the internationally recognised ‘Worldchefs certificate’ for those students who complete their studies – giving them strong employment prospects for when they finish.

During the Covid-19 pandemic, the economy of South Africa dwindled, and the issues that arose from this situation unfairly fell to the rural populations living in South Africa. Singita and their partners helped set up an emergency covid food relief initiative, which helped rural families who were living below the food poverty line by delivering 2863 food parcels to children and families in need.

Singita is involved in initiatives that are based in schools to help educate local school children in many areas. In Zimbabwe, the Malilangwe Trust has worked on a nutrition programme which gives young children a cup of mahewu every day. This is a nourishing porridge based drink that helps to give children the energy and nutrition to be able to make the most of their day at school.

In a rapidly modernising world, Singita helps to make sure that rural communities in South Africa don’t fall behind others due to the lack of technology/information. The Singita Lowveld Trust partnered with the European Space Agency and the Mpumalanga Department of Education which together equipped all 19 local primary schools with satellites and laptops. Singita is also partnered with the Good Work Foundation who’s primary aim is creating digital learning campuses.

Singita has been supporting Early Childhood Development projects since 2009, these help to support the development of local children in the physical, psychological, social and cognitive areas of their life. In Tanzania, Singita supports English immersion camps, which help teach children English language skills, and scholarships are also offered in Tanzania to children who show promise in their dedicated fields of study.

The Malilangwe Trust has a cadets programme which works to empower young men between the ages 0f 16-18 to enter the job market as trained rangers.

To create a deeper understanding of the importance of preserving the local reserves, Singita has helped to fund the Environmental Education Centre to help educate the younger population on the role ‘each individual plays in minimising their impact on the earth’s resources.’ There is also a Conservation Education Centre which is run in a similar way to the environmental centre, by teaching children the importance of conservation and to help create passions for conservation in young people.

To promote the conservation of the Serengeti there is a ‘Serengeti Girls Run’ which takes place in the western corridor and helps to raise awareness for the Grumeti Fund’s important work, and also helps to get local women and international female runners active.

Located just outside Malilangwe Reserve is a ‘living museum’ which showcases the unique Shangaan culture. Local cultures are important to preserve and protect just as much as the local wildlife, and guests who stay near this project will have the chance to immerse themselves and engage in the local culture, to understand its importance in today’s society.

Singita is partnered with Bioregional as their sustainability partner, and have their sustainable practices reviewed and checked by this charity. The framework which Bioregional follows for sustainable practices include ten principles which were developed in tandem with the WWF, and are supported by science and experience. Adopting these guiding principles first in 2012, by 2016 all Singita properties became committed to the principles.

The principles are just a guide to help properties save water, improve their waste management, reduce their carbon footprint, conserve natural resources, and recycle. By following these principles Singita is well on its way to becoming a carbon-neutral operation.

To help mitigate the impact of CO₂ emissions Singita accommodations pay a carbon offset levy for each guest which are used to buy ‘carbon credits’. These carbon credits provide funds for various local projects which help to mitigate carbon emissions, ‘effectively providing guests with a carbon-neutral stay.’ Most materials used in the construction of Singita properties, as well as the furniture and art you will find inside is sourced locally, created using sustainable products, renewable or waste resources. In Singita Boulders Lodge, 100% of the original stones were used in its refurbishment.

To help them reduce their waste, Singita sends much of their recycling to small local businesses that use recycling to generate income for their community. Plastic bottles have been eliminated from Singita’s operations, when guests arrive at a Singita lodge they are given a stainless steel or glass bottle, which can be refilled at water stations. Singita is currently working on reducing other single-use plastics from their operations.

Stepping away from fossil fuels, Singita has installed more efficient energy equipment as well as running energy awareness programmes for all staff. Most of the power is made up of electricity and generator power, however, Singita is now creating a move to renewable forms of energy, such as installing solar panels. Efficient air conditioners, LED light-bulbs and other efficient appliances have been installed to reduce their carbon emissions.

To help support the local communities and reduce food miles, Singita sources their food locally and supports projects which help to increase their local sourcing. A farm-to-table approach is taken by all Singita lodges and this allows them to use fresh and seasonal products in their menus. Local farmers are supported by Singita with a long-term relationship between the two. Specific guidelines for seafood are followed to make sure that any seafood they do order is procured in the most sustainable manner.

Singita constantly monitors their water usage as well as the monitoring of surrounding boreholes which supply the lodge. All the water they do use is used efficiently and returned to the natural systems clean and unpolluted. With all their game drive vehicles, Singita tracks and monitors them to ensure efficient driving behaviours.