Samara Private Game Reserve, Sunday telegraph, UK

"A forgotten corner of South Africa, once famous for its ostriches, is being transformed into a hip destination. And, as David Rogers discovers, the flightless birds are back in fashion, too.

But an extraordinary thing is happening: investors are buying up its struggling sheep farms and restocking the land with wild game; there are now dozens of tourist safari lodges in the Karoo.

I arrived at the most exclusive at sunset: Samara Private Game Reserve, set in 70,000 acres beneath scrub-covered mountains,30 miles south of the historic colonial town of Graaff-Reinet. It acommodates just 12 people and its centrepiece is not a typical wood-and-thatch safari lodge, but a gorgeous 1800s Karoo farmhouse with veranda and corrugated-iron roof. Its interiors have been beautifully restored, and zebra print rugs and cowhide sofas furnish the living room.

The areas true highlight, though, was a game drive into the mountains on my last morning. It took us an hour to get to the top in the Jeep, and I expected to find more scrub and sand. Instead, the Karoo revealed another face, an entirely different habitat from the desert below: the top was a lush green plateau stretching for miles, so similar to the Serengeti that for a minute I thought I ws hallucinating. Herds of mountain zebra, eland, gazelle - and even some cheetah - roamed the pastures.

We drove to the edge of the escarpment and walked to a cliff-edge promontory with a breathtaking view of the plains below. Somewhere beyond the horizon, not visible through the haze, were the Indian Ocean and the Garden Route. As I sat there I tried to picture what lay ahead: the gorgeous beaches of Plettenberg Bay: the oysters, the lagoon, and evergreen forests of Knysna. But it was no use. Instead, lulled by the dreamy silence and the heat of the sun baking the rocks, I fell fast asleep. The Karoo does that to you. It clears the clutter in your head."

Accommodation in and around Eastern Cape