Belmond Eagle Island Lodge

Belmond Eagle Island Lodge is a safari lodge situated in the Okavango Delta in Botswana. The Okavango Delta was voted the 1,000th UNESCO World Heritage Site. It is one of the few delta systems in the world which does not flow into the sea.
The lodge is one of three that comprise Belmond Safaris, the others being Belmond Savute Elephant Lodge and Belmond Khwai River Lodge. All three are reached from Maun, Botswana and interconnected by light aircraft flights.
Eric Cronje Wilmot emigrated from South Africa to Botswana in around 1907, to work on tsetse fly control. His family went on to establish a number of safari camps. By the 1960s Wilmot’s son Bobby had set up a crocodile hunting camp on Xaxaba island, which became a forerunner of today’s Belmond Eagle Island Lodge. In 1966 his son, Lloyd, started assisting his father in the business and began stepping into his father’s safari shoes by leading hunting trips. He took over the business when Bobby was bitten by a snake and died in 1968
In 1970, Crocodile Camp, as it became known, developed into a destination for adventurous overland travellers. Over the following two years it was converted into Botswana’s first permanent safari camp. It was given the name Xaxaba, which means “island of tall trees”, which described its location on the edge of a lagoon just off the Boro channel, the largest waterway in the central delta
In 1975, Moremi Wildlife Reserve was expanded and Xaxaba camp was included within the new Moremi boundary. Lloyd Wilmot moved the camp a short way upstream, out of the new reserve, but retaining the original Xaxaba name. As a pioneer operator in the region he was able to secure another prime location beside the delta—the site of the present-day Belmond Eagle Island Lodge. Wildlife in the area includes cheetah, white rhino and lion. Its bird life includes the African fish eagle. Lloyd Wilmot sold Xaxaba camp to his sister and her husband PJ Bestelink, as he put it: “to get out of the swamps.”
PJ Bestelink moved into the horseback safari business and the camp was sold to a Zimbabwean couple, Paul and Penny Rawson.
The airstrip built near the camp saw increasing numbers of visitors.
In the 1980s Jon Panos of Gametrackers leased the camp; in 1993, Panos retired and his partners, the Rawson couple, sold Xaxaba, along with their two other Botswana camps in Moremi Wildlife Reserve (now Belmond Khwai River Lodge) and Chobe National Park (now Belmond Savute Elephant Lodge) to Orient-Express Hotels.
In 2014, Orient-Express Hotels changed its name to Belmond Ltd. At that time the property was renamed Belmond Eagle Island Lodge.
in 2015, Belmond Eagle Island Lodge closed for an almost total rebuild and reopened in November as one of Botswana’s most eco-friendly lodges. All the tented buildings are constructed on timber-based platforms rather than concrete, decking and gum poles were reclaimed and reused, a local Botswana construction company was employed to carry out the works and all new timbers were Forestry Stewardship council certified as endorsed by the World Wildlife Fund. All power generation, water and sewerage treatment is generated on site and the lodge operates a PV solar-battery system integrated with generators.

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