It’s Safari So Good!
“Look over there.”
“Where? What?”
“An eland – in the trees, just to the left of that clump of…”
Our guide, a ranger called Amos, had the clear, long vision of a hawk. But then he was in familiar terrain and perhaps this largest of the antelopes was usually to be seen on that distant hill.
He had already pointed out a lilac-breasted roller, but that was in a tree next to our open-sided Toyota safari truck. Some never did see the eland.
Location, an hour before the light faded: a few miles outside the boundary of the Mopani Rest Camp in South Africa’s Kruger National Park.
This sanctuary for wild creatures, snake to elephant to finch to ostrich, elusive leopards and lions, stretches 220 miles north to south with a width of 25 to 50 miles, enclosing a wondrous landscape of 7,500 square miles – a third larger than Yorkshire and a similar acreage to Wales.
It is fenced for the safety of all inside and outside, with 11 guarded gates, 1,900 miles of roads with strict speed limits and 18 shops at the camps which are where you stay in self-catering chalets. Most have restaurants, petrol and diesel, all you need to enjoy animals in nature. It is managed by South Africa National Parks.
This was not my first time in the breathing heart of Africa. Thirty years ago I was driving the original Renault Laguna further north in Tanzania and the Serengeti. A year later came the debut of the Nissan Primera at Boulders in Kruger. Ten years on, in the Cape, we were driving the Jaguar XK through the Stellenbosch Valley.
This time – for 25 days at the start of the year – we were paying our way, guided by friends who live in off-grid luxury in a retirement village in the bush north of Pretoria. Hornbills, baboons, zebra, impala and handsome banded nyala are their companions with a bowls league in local towns for a change of view.
Their car is a 2019, Indian-made Mahindra Scorpio 4×4. It’s a handy 14ft long with a 138bhp, 2.2 turbo diesel and a five-speed manual gearbox.
Ahead of the adventure it was fitted with stronger tyres to cope with potholes on main roads and the rocky wash-outs in the bush. Not pretty, but boxily functional, it seemed unbreakable, built to survive India and Africa. Over 1,550 miles it averaged 25mpg at around £4.50 a gallon. Prices are set by the government.
The Kruger visit was the start of a tour which also took us to the town of St Lucia, on the Indian Ocean which is surrounded by the iSimangaliso Wetland Park, the country’s first world heritage site.
It has the most hippos and crocodiles in the country and is where we saw our only rhino. The de-horned, three-ton hulk was grazing placidly a few feet away from our two-ton SUV. What if?
Well, no contest. The route back took us through the magnificent mountains of Eswatini and we rested up for a few nights in a magical eco-lodge in a man-made jungle created from a coffee plantation.
It would have been the sort of place for an adventurous SUV launch back in the day when budgets had no bottom. Now I can’t even borrow a Clio.
People asked whether we were frightened by animals or humans. There was a 20-minute pause in the Kruger, with the narrow road blocked by a dozen or so adult and baby elephants and dominated by seven tons of bull elephant in musth, the periodic soaring of hormones which make them extremely dangerous and unpredictable.
I was at the wheel. Don’t move. The daddy elephant wasn’t moving much either, just tugging away at clumps of grass and shrubs: they spend most of the day eating up to 350lb of herbage.
This was putting us at risk of missing the evening deadline to get back into camp. Don’t move. The elephant was shifting slightly. The others were too. I stirred. Don’t move. To be continued…
Like the wintering swallows and pipits which fly to us for nesting, we’ll be back. Tip, book directly: www.sanparks.org
Originally published in the Spring 2024 Newsletter.
