Gravel Burn 2025 event guide | Page 52

WHERE WE’ RE GOING

FINISH: SHAMWARI PRIVATE GAME RESERVE

Shamwari is home to South Africa’ s Big Five – lion, elephant, buffalo, rhinoceros and leopard – and to an incredible story of wildlife conservation. Entrepreneur and conservationist Adrian Gardiner, who founded the reserve in 1992, began a long process of returning farming land to pristine wilderness by first reintroducing elephant, hippo and white rhino. The cultivated fields that had come to dominate the region were trampled by these large herbivores, who turned over the soil, fertilised it with their manure and dispersed the seeds of indigenous vegetation.

Black rhino and buffalo followed in the mid-1990s; cheetah, lion and brown hyena were brought back to the area in 2000. Serval and leopard were next to arrive. And so, by the early 2000s, Shamwari became the first Big Five game reserve in the Eastern Cape, something that was scarcely believable when the project began.

Shamwari means‘ friend’ in the Shona language, and speaks to the reserve’ s focus on fostering a deep connection and understanding between humans and nature.

Shamwari continues to make an environmental impact through its Shamwari Foundation, which focuses on three core pillars: wildlife conservation, community support and environmental resilience. It has a close working relationship with Vulpro, Africa’ s leading vulture conservation organisation, which is fighting to protect these birds, often called nature’ s cleanup crew, from the brink of extinction. Both organisations are official charity partners of Nedbank Gravel Burn. As you ride to the finish, you’ ll not only get to witness a conservation success story, you’ ll become part of it too.

STAGE 7 111km 125Om 15OOm

200m 0km 10km

20km 30km

40km 50km 60km 70km 80km 90km 100km 111km

1 % PAVED 99 % UNPAVED PADSTAL RIVER CROSSING SUMMIT

52 NEDBANK GRAVEL BURN