South Africa’s Sabi Sabi Bush Lodge is a Next Level Escape

This South African getaway offers every thrill of safari – and the chance to share it with family.

A lioness, scarred but strong, pads towards me until she is just a metre from the open truck I’m sitting in. There’s nothing but air between us. She stops and looks directly at me, her eyes like molten lava. My heart isn’t thumping, as you might expect. Instead, I’m absolutely frozen with fear.

Our tracker, Laz, laughs gently at my paralysis. “Don’t be scared,” he says. “You won’t die in Africa.”

He’s right, of course. I’ve returned to this continent for the first time in 15 years with my family and, as we fly in, I feel overcome once again by the colours below. Rusty veins slice through emerald swatches. Blinding white clouds – the kind of white that paint-makers dream of achieving – create colossal shadows that look like rivers.

On the ground, the landscape buzzes with life. We watch the lioness’s pride of 10 prepare for nightfall, waking from their slumber and grooming themselves for the long night ahead. Then, just like the willis in Giselle, they arise en masse and move in unison across the plain towards us, a great, hulking triangle.

We‘re in South Africa at a private game reserve in the south-western section of the Greater Kruger National Park. Before this trip, my knowledge of game reserves was limited. I imagined them as small, fenced-in areas that offered an inferior experience to the vast plains of the Serengeti. How wrong I was. The reserve owned by Sabi Sabi, which operates four luxury lodges here, is 6500 hectares. To walk its circumference would take nine hours. And because it’s open to the vast Kruger National Park, the animals are able to come and go. “You can drive for hours and not see anything,” says our guide, Jason. “But for me, the most exciting thing is that you never know what’s around the next corner.”

In our four days here, we see animals my daughters – aged 15 and 11 – have only dreamed of. The Big Five, so-called because they’re the most dangerous to hunt on foot: lion, elephant, buffalo, rhino, leopard. The elusive cheetah (an estimated population of 300 in the Kruger) and a pack of wild dogs (only 250 in South Africa). Gorgeous, yawning hippos. A giraffe so close we see her elongated neck quiver as she swallows. And what Jason and Laz introduce as the “ugly five” – wildebeest, warthog, vulture, hyena and marabou stork. “We call the storks undertakers,” quips Jason, “because they hang around kills and eat anything.” Each day, we venture out at sunrise and sunset, happily adjusting to the cadence of safari, eat, rest, repeat. Time slows and we tune into the orchestra of sounds around us, from the laboured breathing of the rhino to the melodic trill of the woodland kingfisher. It’s just as author Gary Eberle once described it: “The clock does not stop, of course, but we do not hear it ticking.”

Home base is the ultra-luxurious Bush Lodge, the largest of Sabi Sabi’s four camps and the most suitable for families, with an EleFun Centre that offers junior ranger programs. Each of the lodges has been designed to echo the past, the present and the future. Selati Camp has a romantic Out of Africa feel (and only seven suites), while Earth Lodge nods to the future with a modern minimalist design and an eco-tourism focus. Bush Lodge and its sibling, Little Bush Camp, are contemporary and sumptuous. Our two bedroom villa – one of 25 types of accommodation on the reserve – has a separate living area, a private pool and a bathroom that features two “couples bathtubs” and an outdoor shower.

During the day, guests have the option of visiting the on-site spa, lazing next to one of the two pools or taking an excursion, whether it’s a walking safari or community tour. Sabi Sabi not only employs locals from the surrounding villages but also supports a digital learning centre, an orphanage and special projects, such as three new water towers. “The money that guests pay to go into the village goes directly back into the community and the projects we’re working on,” says Clerence, the lodge’s community liaison officer.

I have journeyed to Tanzania before but never South Africa and am surprised by the easy access – for us, a direct flight to Johannesburg then a short flight to the resort’s airstrip. While a lot of people like to visit in winter – less foliage means more opportunities for animal spotting – we’re here in the wet season, which brings birds and flowers (and we’re overwhelmed by the range of animals we see).

Going on a safari is a bucket-list experience and it has the price tag to match. But once you get to Sabi Sabi, all meals and drinks – under the stars, by candlelight – are included. And the safari feels much more intimate. Yes, the guides are on the radio to each other all the time to share information about where the animals are but there are only ever two or three Land Rovers at one spot. We have a private vehicle – where possible, the lodge tries to keep family groups separate – and Laz and Jason accompany us on every outing.

There are rules. Walking alone in the camp after dark is a no-no. “You need to be escorted by your ranger,” says lodge manager Lauren, who tells us a leopard was spotted drinking out of our private pool a few weeks earlier. “But don’t worry. We haven’t lost anyone in 42 years.”

On safari “we get fairly close to animals so I do ask you not to put your hand outside the vehicle”, says Jason. “And please don’t stand up. The other day a man stood up and the lion ran straight off. We have a good relationship with the animals and have a lot of respect for them.”

Jason carries a rifle as a precaution and a first-aid kit for any minor injuries. “But if you get bitten by a black mamba,” he says with a laugh, “we’ll just wish you well.”

A former civil engineer, Jason grew up in South Africa and joined Sabi Sabi as a guide last October. Laz has been a tracker for 22 years and sits on the front of the car in a “jump seat” so he can scan the landscape and look for footprints. He’s like a meerkat (one of the few animals we don’t see), his back ramrod straight and his head darting left and right, keeping watch for eyes and ears. One night, I’m stunned when he spots – in the dark, from a moving vehicle – a chameleon clinging to a leaf. “Laz has got a special connection with this land,” explains Jason. “It’s very intuitive for him. I will do a lot of research on where the animals will be but for him, it’s quite instinctive.”

I find myself doing a poor impression of Laz and am keenly aware of how dull my senses have become. When Jason asks if I hear the lion in the distance, I confess that I don’t. I struggle to identify the alarm call of the squirrel. Nor do I smell the acrid stench of the wild dogs, their coats stained with blood from the impala they have just devoured. But I am alive to the sun on my back, the hover of the birds above and the thrill in my gut as we hurtle over the rocky path to our next find.

Lauren promises that we’re going to make “some special memories together as a family” and we do. There’s such joy seeing my daughters gasp when a leopard scales a tree in front of us or hunts a baby impala, which darts away on legs like toothpicks.

We’re often happy to sit in silence and soak up the landscape around us, whether we’re surrounded by a herd of elephants or contemplating the fiery setting sun from a rocky outcrop (Negroni in adult hands).

Small moments can be as rewarding as the big. We watch in fascination as a dung beetle rolls his ball across the ground, waiting for a female to land on it and hitch a free ride before laying her eggs. But two competitors fight him off. “It’s a three-way war,” says Jason. “A battle for poop.”

Sadly, time doesn’t stop. Our last day beckons. But a surprise encounter sweetens the sorrow. There, across the way, is the same pride of lions we saw at the start of our trip. “They look well-fed,” says Jason. “They’ve been smashing the wildebeest.”

The pride is in a different mood today. Less menacing, more playful. While the mothers rest in the drizzle, the cubs practise their hunting skills on each other, pouncing and swiping and gnawing. They leap into the air, as agile and graceful as ballerinas.

It’s a sight we’ll remember forever.