Remarkable Rover

Aggressive competitors, challenging economics and a dip in the market all spell trouble. So what's new about this launch?

- Josh Condon

THE RULE FOR spotting game in the bush is to look for what doesn’t belong. In the shaggy green wild of the southern Serengeti, a flash of ivory snags the eye like silk on a nail. Could it be? Yes, it is—a rare sight among the fever trees and gnarled acacias: a hot tub.

It’s set into an elevated, wraparound deck of Kenyan Meru oak in the shadow of a sprawling canvas sheet. There are lounge chairs and, around the corner, a small dining table with a bottle of Chenin Blanc perspiring in a silver bucket on starched white cloth. The en suite, when fully opened to the breeze, offers panoramic watercolour views from the king-sized bed and feels closer to being outside than in, notwithstanding the stocked bar, writing desk, walk-in shower and Wi-Fi.

So far, so safari lodge. But instead of sitting perched on some hill nestled between an infinity pool and a gift shop, I’m in the thick of Tanzania’s Serengeti National Park, poised at the edge of the tall grass where elephants wander and cat eyes glow back at you in the dark. My spacious and perpetually mood-lit accommodation, over 90sqm of something between a safari tent and a luxe tiny home, is improbably, ingeniously mobile, a remarkable design that folds into itself—lock, stock and bathtub—like a magician’s trunk, becoming its own trailer that can be towed between campsites.