For our Californian friends Ellie and Steve Campbell’s first African adventure, going on safari was a must. Fortunately, KwaZulu-Natal province has some of the country’s best game reserves for spotting the Big 5* (leopard, lion, rhino, elephant and buffalo), and they’re all a 2.5 to 3 hour drive from our Umhlanga Rocks home.

Hluhluwe-Imfolozi is one we’ve visited occasionally over the years, and possibly the most popular; Phinda perhaps the most high-end; iSimangaliso (previously the St Lucia Wetland Park) is on the Elephant Coast near the Mozambique border; as a child, I went there with my parents.

[*Interestingly, though the latter four are not hard to find at Nambiti, leopards are. They’re shy, possibly because they were here before the reserve was established 20 years ago, and remember being targeted by the farmers who used to own this land.]

We chose Nambiti Big 5 Private Game Reserve mainly because we’d recently been there – staying at the privately owned and self-catering Idwala Lodge with our friends Clive and Brigid. Click here for that story.

Nambiti Hills is one of the reserve’s five lodges boasting five stars, and they’re well deserved. The others are Esiweni, Umzolozolo, Nambiti Plains and Lions Valley; there are five others with four or fewer stars.

I loved:

Firstly, the intimacy of the lodge: only nine suites, each in its own cottage,  and so a maximum 18 guests at a time.

Secondly, each room being in a separate cottage with its own private frontage – we arrived and slid open our French doors to find a large warthog snuffling around our backyard.

Thirdly, the spectacular valley view from the expansive front deck complete with cool pool.

Fourthly, ranger Joe’s enthusiasm, energy and wealth of experience that made each of the twice-daily three-hour game drives a unique encounter with nature.

The outstanding food. Breakfast, high tea and dinner are included, as are sundowners and other drinks during game drives. I’d barely digested the first night’s delicious salad and melting pork belly with veggies (chosen from six dishes) before the next morning’s breakfast of Rustic Avocado – hollandaise-topped poached eggs on avo on rye toast, again one of half-a-dozen innovative options.

Day 1, Friday 

Arrived at Nambiti Hills in time for the 4pm to 7pm game drive.  Highly successful it was, too. We were able to tick off: the Mal Pieter plant, with stems that are medicinal but seeds that will literally drive you mad, according to our ranger Joe;  pretty little impala antelopes; several ellies; numerous kudu; a forlorn lioness who had become so distressed and thin when her sister and hunting partner died that she was captured and confined to a boma for a couple of months to recover in safety.

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Day 2, Saturday 

It was astonishing to see Roy up at 4.30am in time to join the 5am to 8am safari. It had been a while since last he saw a sunrise; he showed signs of confusion, trying to order a couple of cocktails and a bowl of olives.

Sightings included a herd of blue wildebeest with several babies; zebras; and two fat-bellied cheetahs feeding on the reedbuck they’d killed the previous day. To our great surprise, we saw the two cats being driven off by a couple of stout warthogs. That’s not unusual, said Joe – warthogs can be stroppy buggers.

The evening game drive was sensational. Most lion sightings involve the big cats lying around lazily. This was very different.  A clearly angry and disturbed lioness with her mate – she was on heat and they’d been “busy, busy, busy” for the last few days, said Joe – was moving around swiftly and making a lot of noise. The next morning, rangers found the carcass of a lion cub that she had killed.

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Then more rhinos, giraffes, kudus by a dam, a couple of hippos, and an encounter with three of the four anti-poaching team members. Their uniforms, bikes and other equipment are sponsored by the WWF black rhino expansion programme.

Dinner was a surprise barbecue in the lodge’s own boma, next to a massive bonfire. It being Burns’ Night, and with the our friends Campbells in town, we called for the haggis – but in vain. Several wee drams of Glenfiddich had to suffice.

Day 3, Sunday

The prospect of rising at 4.30am was not an appealing one. So all of us except for perennially early-bird Steve skipped the morning game drive in favour of a lazy day: lounging in and next to the pool in mid-30s temperatures, followed by massage at the spa.

In light of the heat – the real feel was 36 degrees Centigrade – we hadn’t expected to see much game on the afternoon drive, but as it cooled down the activity picked up. Coming across a massive herd of 23 elephants, we sat and waited for them to cross the road in front of us, and our patience was rewarded.

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Another highlight was when we stopped as usual for sundowners and found that one of the vehicles had gone ahead to set up a birthday party for both me and fellow-Durbanite Cathy Greig, who was born on exactly the same date as I was. Safaris are her thing, and this Nambiti trip was part of her 60th birthday celebrations.

Chef Bongo had baked a birthday cake – surely the best cake I’ve eaten in years – and we washed it down with chilled Dieu Donné méthode Cap Classiqe.

As if that wasn’t magical enough, two rhinos moseyed along the road, almost as if they were coming to join the party. They’re short-sighted beasts, relying on smell and hearing, so we held our breath and stayed tjoep–stil (very, very quiet) while they moved around us and onwards into the gathering dusk. Magical!