Discovery Meets Downtime (and Sundowners) at Monarto Safari Resort’s Luxe New Lodge

Monarto Safari Park occupies roughly 1550 hectares of the scenic Mallee Plains in South Australia’s Murrayland region. It’s the largest open-range zoo outside Africa, and it’s less than an hour’s drive from Adelaide.

The park has been operated by Zoos SA, a not-for-profit conservation charity, for most of its history, and largely operated as an educational and conservation facility. But last year, Monarto opened its first on-site accommodation – a 78-room, five-star resort replete with day spa, pool bar and balconies overlooking open plains roamed by zebra and giraffe – owned and developed by Jayco founder Gerry Ryan.

This month, Monarto revealed the follow-up: a luxury, 20-tent safari lodge situated in the park’s Wild Africa precinct.

Operated by Journey Beyond, whose experiential stable also includes Sal Salis at Ningaloo Reef and the Ghan railway, the lodge is intended to be a more intimate, secluded experience than the family-friendly resort across the savannah. (You can bring your kids to the lodge, but they must be 16 or older.)

The tents and communal areas, including the dining room and bar, plunge pools and swimming pool, are all oriented to give guests expansive views out to the  plains and importantly, the herds ranging them.

“We approached the project with a responsibility to create something more than just accommodation,” says Architect Damien Ellis. “It’s about delivering a rare kind of stillness and immersion within the landscape.

Ryan Genesin, whose eponymous design studio looked after the interiors, made sure to skirt safari cliches and instead focused on creating a sense of “grounded luxury [that] embraced the dusty surroundings”.

He’s used ceramics, textile works and timber sculpture by South Australian and Victorian artists, as well as dry-pressed Australian brick wall tiles and timber panelling, to bring to a life a space that is rooted in local materials and has a “calm, textural... understated luxury”. The bar stone, for example, is a quarried granite from nearby Wallaroo.

Each tent has a private deck, sweeping views of the grasslands, and “the play of dappled light... filtering through screens and over surfaces,” says Ellis. The architecture is intended to peel away.

“We wanted to make it easy to slow down. The architecture supports that by staying out of the way. It frames the environment, filters light and gives people moments of calm without distraction.”

Stays at the Safari Lodge are all-inclusive, and involve a 2.5 hour Wild Africa sunset safari. Monarto is divided into two main areas – the 1000-hectare safari park, open to the public, and the adjacent 560-hectare area called Wild Africa, accessible only by guests of the hotel properties.

Wild Africa is home to the aforementioned free-roaming herds of giraffe, zebra and antelope, as well as the park’s treasured Nile hippopotamuses and Southern White Rhinos.

Where resort guests tour the precinct in 26-seater safari trucks, lodge guests pile into custom-built, open-sided nine-seater Landcruisers, “just like you’d find in South Africa,” says Jason Simpson, general manager of tourism and events for ZoosSA.

“So they’re … a little bit more connective. You literally have no sides and you’re driving along and you’ve got a three-metre giraffe right there, and you’re looking at female cheetahs within three meters of the vehicle.”

Monarto is a registered non-for-profit, and all revenue generated goes back into conservation programs, including habitat restoration, species initiatives and breeding. A portion of the room rates are donated directly to conservation projects. 

“Conservation is hard. It’s expensive,” Simpson says. “A project like [the lodge] … provides the support that we will need to increase our conservation efforts over the next 10, 15, 20 years.

“When you’re out there on a vehicle coming face-to-face with a Southern White Rhino, knowing within 15 or 20 years, that opportunity might only happen in a pair of VR headset goggles, something hits people –  they have a moment, and understand how beautiful nature is.

“If they can leave remembering... they’re actually contributing to ensure that their children, or their children's children, will see these animals in real life, then that's our ultimate goal. Advocacy drives long-term conservation, right? It’s those memories that fuel ongoing advocacy. If we can keep their heart full for as long as possible with those memories, that’s the biggest thing.”

An all-inclusive two-night package at the Wild Luxury at Safari Lodge begins at AUD $2,920, with a minimum two-night stay required. Packages also include two-day general admission passes to Monarto Safari Park. Two accessibility tents are available.

monartosafariresort.com/safari-lodge 

This story is part of Broadsheet’s special Travel Issue, presented by Commonwealth Bank and Travel Booking via the CommBank app.