As we drove through the gates, a contrast between the occupants of the vehicle became apparent fairly early on. Sally (a South African) was knitting in the back seat, and I was gripping my camera tightly and asking excited questions about the monkeys in the campsite (which most consider pests!). I was away for the weekend with Paddy, his brother Dan, and their parents Sean and Sally, at a game reserve in the north west of South Africa called Pilanesburg.

Wildlife was always one of the larger attractions to South Africa for me (although Carling Black Label and Chili Biltong have since been added to the list), and I was delighted to have the opportunity to see some so soon after my arrival. The plan was to spend the weekend camping just outside the Game Reserve and spend a large portion of our time in the park itself. Pilanesburg (named after the Tswane Chief, “Pilane”) lies in the crater of a long-extinct volcano and is the home of a vast array of wildlife, including the Big Five – Lion, African Elephant, Buffalo, Leopard, and Rhinoceros.

For the first kilometre into the park I was straining my eyes hoping to see something far in the distance – I’d been told not to expect much, as there are occasions when you won’t come across any game at all. Not a kilometre further down the road the magic started though: a family of rhino were dozing just a few metres from our Land Rover. It was amazing to be so close to such an endangered and dangerous species, and in a much more natural setting than a zoo. That morning we saw a plethora of wildlife, ranging from various types of buck (impala, eland, kudu), to a tortoise, to giraffe.

At one tired-eyed point on Saturday evening after a fantastic day of game viewing I began to wonder why the four wildlife veterans in the car continued to go on these trips. In the simplest terms, we were driving around in a car and looking at the same animals in rotation. On Sunday morning my pessimistic ponderings were washed away after a series of fortunate elephant-related events.

Elephants are probably the most dangerous animals in a game park to the inexperienced. A couple of days before our trip I watched a video of two English tourists foolishly advancing on a massive bull elephant in their rented Volkswagen Lupo in Kruger Park. The camera operator (whose vehicle was probably 100m further away from the elephant than the others) shouted “Ry Ben, Ry!”, Afrikaans for “Drive Ben, Drive!”. The Lupo was toppled and the wife’s leg was impaled by the elephant’s tusk.

Our first intimate encounter on Saturday morning was much more pleasurable however. We stumbled across an elephant in what we deemed his “spa” – rolling in a mud bath and kicking dirt around. With his trunk he sprayed dust onto his ear which he then flicked over his face – all in an attempt to protect himself from the sun. He then rubbed himself against a dirt bank, and deeming his factor 50 generously applied he disappeared into the bush to go about his day. My camera’s shutter almost melted!

The fact that I put it away completely later that day speaks for how special our second encounter was. We were on our way out of the park to pack up our camp and head home, but we decided to stop off at a bird hide on the way. The hide was empty, and we sat for a while overlooking the buck and wildebeest grazing around the reservoir. As if the day couldn’t have gotten any better, Paddy spotted an elephant a few hundred metres away between the trees to our left. He disappeared, and another one appeared in his wake. And another, and another. Paddy looked over the front of the bird hide, and reckoned the ground was trampled as it was an elephant trail to the reservoir. He was spot on. I let my camera hang around my neck as 8 elephants (2 bulls, 2 cows, and 4 calves) lumbered past almost within our reach. For three reasons I didn’t take photos:

• I was afraid the shutter noise would agitate them.
• The elephants were so close that I couldn’t take any reasonable photos with the long lens I had on my camera, but most importantly:
• It was such a rare occasion that I didn’t want to spoil it hidden behind a camera anyway. Oh, and the fourth reason:
• It would have required another pair of hands; my own set were occupied trying to pull my jaw back up from the floor!

These two experiences made me realise just what drives people to keep coming back. Each encounter with an animal in the wild gives you a different insight into their behaviour – you witness a different part of their livelihood each time, and I always found new questions to ask and was lucky enough to have knowledgable people with me to answer them. At one point a group of elephants were crowded around a tree taller than its neighbours. A “Marula” tree, I was informed: the fruit of which they particularly enjoy. As Paddy said, we humans are the strangers in places like these – and we’re truly priveleged both that they still exist, and that we have the opportunity to visit them.