Out of Africa: A trip to one of the most fascinating places on Earth

I’d travelled to Africa five times, each trip as different as it was extraordinary, but I’d never been there with my wife.

“We have to go before we get any older,’’ I say to her one evening. “Is it safe?’’ she asks. “Trust me,’’ I reply. “Have I ever let you down?’’

“There was that time in Thailand,’’ she says. Ah, yes. That trip to Thailand, the one on which I learnt the hard way that if an on-line accommodation deal for a beachfront villa sounds too good to be true, it probably is.

“It’s safe,’’ I assure her. “You just have to be sensible”.

We have a three week period in late June-early July in which to travel. It will be winter, the dry season, so it will be cool. There will also be less foliage on the trees which will make the game easier to spot.

As it is her first trip, I want to provide as varied an experience as possible without rushing. I’d travelled with African experts Bench International before and with their help, organise an itinerary.

There’s a last minute hitch when my wife realises I intend to hire a car and self-drive on one part of the trip. She’s heard stories about carjackings and isn’t happy. She is unmoved my assurances that we will be safe so I cancel the hire car and organise one with a driver.

We fly from Brisbane to Sydney and connect with a Qantas flight to Johannesburg. It’s a bit over 14 hours flying time, the alternative routes being through Dubai, Singapore or Abu Dhabi using Emirates, Virgin or Etihad and involving multiple stops.

The direct Qantas service, however, is the fastest and most convenient.

We spend the night at an airport hotel and fly to Victoria Falls in Zimbabwe the next morning, a journey of 90 minutes and check into the Victoria Falls Safari Club.

There is a lodge and a more up-market club. We’ve booked the club and are given a suite overlooking a waterhole where as dusk falls elephants, impala and kudu gather. Sitting on our balcony, we toast our first African sunset.

We spend four days there taking self guided tours, being drenched in the spray of the Zambezi River as it thunders and roars over the falls. We take a once-in-a-lifetime helicopter flight over the falls and walk across the bridge spanning the Zambezi into Zambia and from there, watch the bungee jumpers leaping from the bridge into the gorge below.

From Victoria Falls, we travel by car to Camp Kuzuma in the Chobe region of Botswana, a trip of about two and half hours.

At Camp Kazuma we’re shown to our five star tent, more akin to an oversized hotel suite with canvas walls, king size bed, bath, shower, deck opening out to the bush and faux Victorian furnishings.

We rise before dawn the next morning, dress in three layers of clothing to combat the five degree chill and head off in an open LandRover on a game drive.

Over the next three mornings we spot giraffe, elephants, zebras, ostrich, antelopes of all sorts and on the last morning, a pride of lions. If you were wondering what you do in safari camps during the day, then the answer is “not much”.

Kazuma is built beside a large waterhole that attracts herds of elephants and antelopes so days are spent lying by the pool reading, sipping the occasional South African chardonnay and watching the elephants taking mud baths.

The pool is protected from the wildlife by a single strand electric fence, installed when it was discovered that the elephants were siphoning water from the pool with their trunks.

We leave the camp and travel by car to Kasane on the Chobe River, crossing into Namibia and being taken by speedboat to a houseboat where we spend the next two nights.

The Ichobezi Moli is a fully-staffed houseboat with a crew of five containing four ensuite cabins, a well appointed, comfortable platform from which to view the wildlife which teems along the grassy banks of the Chobe.

In the mornings and afternoons we board a powerboat and go game viewing.

Crocodiles, elephants, buffalo and more worryingly, hippos are everywhere. We also close within five metres of a leopard walking along the riverbank, the body of a baboon it had just killed visible in the fork of a nearby tree.

Hippos watch as we cruise slowly along the bank, massive, four legged brown sausages that slide into the water with an economy of movement at odds with their vast bulk.

We do four of these river excursions, on one spotting the largest crocodile I have ever seen.

After two nights we travel back to Kasane and fly to Cape Town for three nights, staying at DeWaterkant, a short distance from the Victoria and Albert waterfront restaurant and shopping district.

The wine and food are cheap by Australian standards. We have pre-dinner drinks, two courses and a bottle of wine every evening and rarely spend more than $120.

The next morning is cloudless and we take the cable car to the top of Table Mountain. The views are wonderful.

We hire a guide who takes us down to the Cape of Good Hope, stopping at seaside villages along the way for fish and chips and the obligatory bottle of excellent South African wine.

After three days it’s off to the wine country, the trip I’d intended to take in the hire car.

The chauffeur turns out to be a much better option as we stop for numerous wine tastings and I am comfortably over the legal blood alcohol limit when we arrive at Franschhoek Country House, about 2km from the centre of town.

Franschhoek, which enjoys a French rather than Dutch influence, boasts some of the best restaurants in South Africa and we enjoy an excellent meal at the Country House.

The next day our driver takes us back to Cape Town. This time we don’t stop at the vineyards and are at the Taj Hotel, in a suite looking out to Table Mountain in a little more than an hour.

The Blue Train is an indulgence but we had decided we were worth it and early the next morning we board it at Cape Town Station for the 30 hour, five star journey to Pretoria, rolling through the semi-arid desert country of the Great Karoo while enjoying all-inclusive hospitality.

We arrive in Pretoria around mid-morning and are taken to Castello di Monte.

This is a small, five star hotel on a hilltop in the ultra-exclusive suburb of Waterkloof with magnificent views over the city, a slice of Tuscany in South Africa which can be organised as part of the Blue Train package.

The Blue Train is a luxury, a side-bar indulgence to wider southern Africa travels. We choose to do it at the end of our trip and it makes for the perfect conclusion.

The next afternoon we make the 80 minute trip back to Johannesburg’s OR Tambo airport and home.

“When can we go back?’’ asks my wife as we settle in for the shorter, 12 hour trip back to Sydney.

Africa’s like that. One trip is never enough.

GETTING THERE

Bench International has a Splendours of Southern Africa,

20 night itinerary that includes Victoria Falls, Cape Winelands, Cape Town and Chobe National Park safari from $7,940 per person. Call 1300-AFRICA (237 422) or visit www.benchinternational.com.au

Bench International has a Splendours of Southern Africa,

20 night itinerary that includes Victoria Falls, Cape Winelands, Cape Town and Chobe National Park safari from $7,940 per person. Call 1300-AFRICA (237 422) or visit www.benchinternational.com.au

Have you been to Africa before? Where did you go and what did you see?