We had traveled all day from Pretoria to reach our adorable guest house outside White River.
The owners greeted us with a tray of milky rooibos tea, and guided us through the lush and fragrant garden to our chintzy, antique-filled rooms. It was a house for reading Kipling and eating fondant fancies, and we all fell instantly in love with it.

Very early the next morning – about 4am – we donned our pith helmets….okay I’m kidding about the pith helmets. We donned our fleeces, bush hats and SLRs, and huddled, freezing, in an open jeep as we drove the hour to the closest park gate.

Right at the gates, some giraffes were causing a hold-up while they reached for leaves above the ranger’s booth, and we knew the day would be something special!

We drove across the plains as the sun rose along with the temperature, and we watched a large troop of baboons sunning themselves and bickering on some exposed rocks. I decided then that there was something creepy about baboons, and my fears were confirmed later in the day when I saw three snarling males terrorizing a jeep of French tourists. They were ripping off the windscreen wipers and trying to smash their way into the soft-top vehicle while the tourists decided how much trouble they’d be in if they just started driving with apes on their roof.

I was thrilled to spot my first springbok, much to the amusement of our guide. Within the next 15 minutes, we probably saw another hundred of the little antelope, and by lunchtime, they no longer warranted photographs.

Our guide told us the springbok are known locally as ‘McDonalds’: fast and easy food for any large predator in the park, and also named for the ‘ebony arches’ on their behinds, forming a perfect McDonald’s ‘M’!

Throughout the day, we chalked up sightings of lions (‘lion’ all over the road and ignoring us), elephant (young bulls fighting, and chasing us away), imposing white rhino, adorable giraffe and zebras aplenty.

I was pleased to see a huge nile monitor eyeballing songbirds on a riverbank, and shifty vultures looking cartoon-perfect in a dead tree above a wildebeest carcass.

Over lunch, our guide told us stories from his years in the park; of black mambas striking at jeeps and hippos munching hapless swimmers. We saw some of these killer hippos later, as we crossed a rickety bridge on our way out of the park. They were disarmingly (no pun intended) big-eyed and cute.

As the red African sun began to set on our perfect Kruger day, we rolled reluctantly past our last herd of elephants to the gates.

In a reserve bigger than many countries, we had barely scratched the surface, and seen no leopard or cheetah. Nevertheless, this was the biggest, easiest and most abundant wildlife experience of my life.