WORDS — Alexia Santamaria
Kruger, South Africa’s most iconic national park, is a vast, untamed wilderness that’s ripe with wildlife and natural wonder.
South Africa is not mucking around.
After the long flight from Auckland to Johannesburg and a transfer to the Kruger region, there’s just enough time for a quick bite and a shower at our beautiful accommodation, Moditlo River Lodge, before we’re asked to be in the lobby at 4pm sharp for our first game drive.
Straight to the good stuff – huge animals, in the wild. That’s one way to outrun jet lag.
Climbing awkwardly into the open jeep beside our guide, I realise I have absolutely no idea what to expect. It’s my first time on this extraordinary continent, thanks to the amazing team at Viva Expeditions, and the mechanics of safari life are still a mystery, But it doesn’t take long to get the picture. Barely five minutes in, our tracker signals quietly to the guide. There are low mutterings in their local dialect, a gentle turn of the wheel and suddenly we’re just metres from a lioness and her cubs.
A sharp collective inhalation is followed by reverent silence as our gobsmacked group tries to take it all in – the beauty of these animals, their proximity, the surreal calm of it all. The trio glance at us much like my cat does at home – mild curiosity mixed with indifference. So strangely familiar.
“These animals are used to the vehicles,” our guide explains softly. “We head out at dawn and again in the late afternoon every day, and many of us have been doing this for decades. They know the jeeps, they know us, and they know we mean no harm. So, they look at us – and let us look at them.”
It feels like a quiet privilege.
After everyone has taken what must be their 345th photo, we set off again – and the sightings keep coming. Rhinos, elephants, giraffes and impala appear with almost dreamlike regularity. It is hard to comprehend that less than 24 hours earlier I was at Auckland Airport wrangling passports, luggage and general stress-y-ness. Now I am here, watching Africa unfold in real time. And just when I think it can’t get any better, our guide flips down a panel at the front of the vehicle to reveal a makeshift bar, producing perfectly chilled gin and tonics as the sun begins its gorgeous descent.
South Africa, I know we’ve just met, but I think I love you.
The next few days follow a similar rhythm with plenty more delighted gasps and barely contained excitement as the creatures from our childhood storybooks seem to step off the pages into reality. The volume rises several notches whenever babies are involved. I’m not sure I will ever see anything more adorable than a young elephant, still figuring out how to use his trunk, stumbling and bounding awkwardly behind his mother and the rest of the herd.
And while I could happily have spent the entire week drifting between game drives, Boma dinners, swimming pools and the warmth of smiling ever-joyous staff, there is plenty more to discover beyond the lodge. A visit to Elephant Moments was a true highlight of the trip, and possibly my life. Established in 1997 after the rescue of a four-month-old calf named Jabulani, the sanctuary grew from one orphaned elephant into a place dedicated to the care and protection of elephants who have lost their families to poaching. Standing so close to these enormous creatures – some raised by the very humans guiding us – was quietly profound. They swing their trunks with gentle curiosity, allowing us to touch their impossibly rough skin, and regard us with an intelligence that feels unmistakably present.
South Africa, I know we’ve just met, but I think I love you.
Listening to the stories of the love and effort that goes into rehabilitating these vulnerable animals makes the experience one I will never forget.
A less gentle – but no less extraordinary – experience is the Hoedspruit Endangered Species Centre, where conservation programmes are actively safeguarding some of Africa’s most vulnerable wildlife. We encounter cheetahs, rhinos and African wild dogs up close, and are fortunate to meet the founder, Lente Roode, whose captivating stories bring the centre’s origins vividly to life (it all started with a single orphaned cheetah cub who became her pet when she was six).
Another once-in-a-lifetime moment comes at HERD’s Vulture Restaurant, where staff lay out meat and carcasses and let nature take its course. Within minutes, the sky darkens as hundreds of vultures and other enormous birds of prey descend in a primal feeding frenzy – raw, chaotic, brutal and utterly mesmerising, like a scene from a real-life wildlife documentary.
The Kruger region was everything I dreamed of, and so much more. Seeing these animals move through vast, untamed landscapes is the kind of experience that recalibrates your sense of scale and reminds you how small we really are.
I once read that if you can only visit two continents in your lifetime, you should visit Africa twice, and after this first trip to South Africa, I think that might just be true.
