I booked a trip with Exodus Travels that combined a five-day guided trek along the Drakensberg escarpment, with a few days in the Kruger National Park tacked on at the end. With travel and day-trips included this was a two-week holiday, with the trekking being the big draw. Or so I thought.

The trekking was magnificent — pretty much everything I’d expected it to be. Making our way up onto the main escarpment, then spending the next four days travelling along the border between South Africa and Lesotho, this was remote country with almost no sign of habitation or other trekkers. Returning to civilisation signalled the end of the main event for me.

On the Drakensberg escarpment, looking out over KwaZulu-Natal

However, as it turned out, my most abiding memories of the trip are almost exclusively from the final three days in the Kruger (though coming within 100 feet of being hit by lightning up in the mountains of Lesotho is a notable exception). I guess I somehow thought that umpteen years of watching David Attenborough nature documentaries had prepared me for the real thing. The fact that I was easily managing to get up at 3:30 am for game drives and walks over the next couple of days indicates that I was wrong on this score. The sheer variety and quantity of wildlife was mind blowing. Quite apart from the so-called “big five” (Rhino, Leopard, Lion, Elephant, Buffalo), the ever present bird life was really something to behold.

Our last full day in the park kicked off with another 3:30 start, leaving the camp at not much past 4am, for a half-hour drive in an open-sided vehicle to a spot where we were going to wander through the scrub on foot. Within 15 minutes of leaving camp, one of the guides spotted something just off the road. Pulling over, we watched agog as a leopard sauntered out of the bush, nonchalantly ambled around the back of the truck — not three feet from us — and then proceeded to mark its territory on the opposite side of the road before melting back into the bush again. Remembering to breathe is quite hard during one’s first close-up encounter with a leopard.

Early morning leopard encounter

The fact that we saw very little on our game walk subsequently was irrelevant. We were all high as kites after the leopard encounter, and we hadn’t even had breakfast yet! Driving on across the park later that morning, we came across a large herd of elephants, very close to the road. There are large numbers of these animals in the Kruger, but regular sightings do little to diminish the awe one feels in their presence.

The Kruger is home to over 10 000 elephants

Just a little further up the road, we crossed paths with a pair of hungry lionesses.

Lioness on the hunt

Shortly thereafter, we spotted a female rhino with calf…

Female rhino with calf

…and then, completing the “big five” full house, a buffalo down by the river.

African Buffalo

And what was my overriding memory of this African adventure? Watching a giraffe — a huge male — galloping along the road in the deepening dusk, hooves echoing through the bush, looking for all the world as if it was running in slow motion.

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• Poacher eaten by lion in Kruger National Park (telegraph.co.uk)