The eye never forgets what the heart has seen -An African Safari

A Safari is my absolute favourite holiday and my love affair with Africa began many years before I got the opportunity to experience it for myself. I used to watch Sir David Attenborough with my dad as a child and he would be in the most amazing and sometimes most remote places in Africa and I thought, someday I am going there.

Brian Jackman once wrote “Africa changes you forever like nowhere on earth. Once you have been there you will never be the same” – he was so right. I have been lucky to have travelled to Kenya, Tanzania, and South Africa to experience some of the greatest moments of my life.

So have you ever dreamt of a safari holiday and wondered what it would be like? Well let me say from the outset its suitable for everyone but for some people will find it lifechanging. So, what happens? Well, your arrival into your reserve can be an awesome experience, be it a fly in safari where you take a small 4–6-seater and land right in the middle of the bush (totally recommended) or you are picked up by jeep and transferred by road, your safari begins that moment. Most people stay in lodges and they are generally of a 5* standard, its luxury with everything from outdoor showers, four Poster beds, the wonderful array of foods on offer to the sights around you. A safari holiday will have you rising from bed about 5.30 AM, get dressed and have a quick cuppa before you head out on your morning game drive at 6 AM. You will see the sunrise as the sights and sounds of the African morning begins to come alive before your eyes. This game drive will last till 9 AM when you return to the lodge for breakfast and some relaxation by the pool or indeed back to bed for a nap. Lunch is served at around 1.30 PM. The afternoon offers an opportunity to take a walk in the bush with your ranger or simply relax in the spa. Then following afternoon Tea, you head out again for your evening game drive about 4.30 PM. You leave the lodge in the brightness and warmth of an African day and return in the darkness of night. The African sunset is a magnificent sight, and the stars shine brighter in Africa than I have ever experienced anywhere else in the world, it is a sight to behold. During your evening game drive, you get to stop and stand in the middle of the bush as the sun goes down and enjoy your favourite tipple with your fellow travellers and your ranger.

Then at 7.30 you return to your lodge where dinner is served around 8 PM. Dinner is a wonderful experience normally it's outside in the Boma and you get to recount with other guests the wildlife sightings that day brought under the starry sky. The stories are always so exciting!! Then its bed early enough as you get ready to do it again the next morning while wondering what you will see tomorrow!!

So, people often ask me what of all your safari moments are your most amazing, well for me one of the most amazing was staying in the middle of the Serengeti in the Bush Rover and one night I woke up and was surrounded by Wildebeest on their annual migration to Kenya, listening to the lions in the background, it was spine tingling. I have stayed in some of the most amazing lodges but in South Africa, River Lodge in Lion Sands and Sabi Sabi Earth Lodge were my two favourites and the game in this area is amazing. I have seen so many beautiful animals and as Karen Blixen once said, “If there was one more thing I could just do, it would be to go on safari once again”.