Next Stop: South Africa (Greater Kruger)

Surprise, surprise, I’m back on what I make my ninth flight in twelve months to Johannesburg.  Greta Thunberg, I am not.  She might actually have a placard with my name on it.

Good news: three brand new reviews and one update.  Bad news: one of these properties has a sister camp opening two months later that’s meant to be better than where I’m staying.  Rude.

Priority number one is wild dog collaring, everything else is secondary, unless a wild dog wants to collar me and then I’m game.  For said wild dog collaring, I’ll be at Royal Malewane, back from a much-needed refurb with all the new fancy things.  Their other three Thornybush camps are superb, so it would be genuinely hilarious if this one turned out to be rubbish.  I don’t see it happening.  Shame.

After that, Singita Lebombo — where my whole safari problem started, with it being the first lodge I ever stayed in.  They closed for a soft refurb earlier this year, which in this industry usually translates to brighter cushions.  But that is enough to get me back into the Kruger….on a private concession….at a luxury lodge.  Yeah, I’ll slum it anywhere for the latest scoop.

Finishing at MalaMala Rattray’s Camp and Tengile River Lodge.  MalaMala opens Khensani River Lodge in December and has kindly agreed to walk me round the building site, so expect me to point at drywall with great authority.  And Tengile is worth a look purely because they left &Beyond, and I respect that.

What’s quite wonderful is that my first ever guide, the one who took me out at Lebombo, now works at MalaMala — and those lovely people have specifically hooked us up so we can be reunited in a private vehicle.  The man who started all this, back in a vehicle with the idiot he created.  I romanticise it, knowing in reality it’ll mean stone-cold silence, broken by me occasionally asking where the bathroom is.