South Africa

• The Cape Escape - Cape Town
• My Mountain High in Cape Town - Cape Town
• The Drop Zone - Cape Town
• On the trail to true adventure - Johannesburg
• The great es-Cape - Cape Town
• Come into the Garden - The Garden Route
• My Zulu Extravaganza - Durban
• Up Close and Personal - South African Safari
• Tracking Big Game - Kruger National Park
• Sleeping with the Lions - South African Safari
• A Safari with real pride - South African Safari
• Where the Lion King comes to Life - South African Safari
• Our guide to the top 10 safaris - South African Safari
• A Roaring Success - Victoria Falls
• Come into the Garden - The Garden Route
• The Worlds Most Beautiful Road? - The Garden Route
• Zipping off to Zanzibar - Zanzibar, Kenya
• Africa's catch of the day - Mozambique
• The Cape escape… and it was right up my Street - Garden Route: South Africa
• The nation kissed by a rainbow - South Africa
• Our wild silver wedding! - Kenya

MY EIGHT-YEAR-OLD SON was squatting on a dirt track staring at a ball of elephant poo being pushed by a determined dung beetle.

‘The male is pushing the dung while the female sits on top and lays her eggs inside. He can go on pushing for several hours,’ explained our exuberant young game warden, Issac Maduse, who well knows the fascination youngsters have with excrement.

We were on a children’s safari drive in the Madikwe Game Reserve in the far north of South Africa. Crucially for the children, it’s a malaria- free area. Apart from Issac, we were also accompanied by Nyiko, an expert on plants and insects.

‘Feel these leaves,’ he said, shoving a branch towards his three small charges in the open Land Rover. ‘Ooh, soft,’ said my two-year-old niece, rubbing it against her cheek. ‘That’s right, which is why we Africans call it the toilet-paper bush; it’s soft enough to wipe your bum with,’ explained Nyiko. The two boys sniggered gleefully.

There are two game wardens for the safari drives instead of one so that the children between the ages of three and 12 can go without their parents. The drives are shorter and the emphasis is different. ‘The adults are only interested in seeing the big five: lion, elephant, leopard, rhino and buffalo,’ said Myiko. ‘Whereas the kids are just as happy when they see a dung beetle or a giant millipede.’

McDonalds of the Bush

Our two guides were also adept at name-checking well-known cartoon figures. Instead of saying, ‘There’s a yellow-billed hornbill,’ and losing the children’s interest, Isaac pointed to a brightly-coloured bird and cried out, ‘There’s Zazu from the Lion King.’ Later we came across Zazu’s friend Pumba, the warthog, which elicited more giggles from the boys. If you’ve seen The Lion King, you’ll know that Pumba has a problem with wind.

On adult game drives you often stop for a morning coffee or evening gin and tonic. On a children’s safari there’s hot chocolate or apple juice. And tasks to be done.

The two boys had to find an animal track and make a plaster cast of it. Isaac supplied the plaster and identified some impala tracks, a small deer known as the McDonald’s of the bush because it has a white M-shape on its backside and is the favourite fast food of the lions and leopards.

The boys had also been given a list of animals, birds and insects which they had to tick off as they saw them. It’s the kind of exercise that small males relish, and every few minutes one shouted out, ‘I’ve got another one’.

Dazzle of Zebra

Later Isaac quizzed them. ‘What do you call a group of zebra?’ ‘Don’t know - a herd, maybe,’ said one of the boys. ‘No, it’s a dazzle of zebra.’

We also learnt that it’s a journey of giraffe, a harem of impala, a crèche of rhino and a school of hippo. I hope one of these comes up in our next school quiz night.

So far so good, but on our way back to Jaci’s Tree Lodge, where we were staying, there was a frightening reminder that the African bush is not always a safe place to be with small children. Standing in the middle of the track just a few yards in front of our vehicle was a huge bull elephant looking for a fight.

His ears were pricked and his trunk was pointing upwards at a right angle. Not a good sign, according to our two guides, who looked worried.

Of even more concern was the fact that neither had a rifle, as guns are thought to be unnecessary on a children’s game drive. I was terrified the two-year old would start screaming and provoke the elephant even more. Fortunately she stayed silent. We remained still and after a tense few minutes the elephant moved off. Back at the lodge, the children tucked into bowls of pasta; the adults were in need of a stiff drink. Jaci’s prides itself on being family friendly and the kitchen will cook special meals for youngsters. It has eight treehouses in the forest linked by wooden railways, which made me feel safer, especially when my son spotted a large snake below. The luxurious rooms are big enough for two adults and two children sharing. We had an outside shower and a huge freestanding stone bath, big enough for the whole family.

Bush big mac!

The next day we were woken at 5am for a game drive, designed for adults, though children can be brought or left at the lodge with babysitters. We took my son and niece, which in the latter’s case was a mistake as she was tired: the four-hour drive was too long and at that age children can’t really distinguish between seeing animals in a zoo or in the wild.

We saw rhino, elephant, giraffe, zebra and (at a distance) two male lion, but there are long periods on game drives where you don’t see anything and the eight-year-old became restless. I glanced at him nervously when the warden started talking about mating habits. Call me old-fashioned, but I wasn’t up to explaining the birds and the bees at 6am in front of a bunch of strangers in a Land Rover.

We also made a mistake of not bringing enough clothes. When the sun was out it was boiling but as game drives are conducted in the early mornings or evenings it can be quite cold, even in the South African summer. Jaci’s has radiators in the rooms and under floor heating and open-fires in the main lodge. But you still need to wrap up.

Jaci herself is delightful and, with three children of her own, she understands what’s needed for a family holiday. She recommends a stay of four days so you’re not racing to go on every game drive, but I think that two days is enough for children under 10. Though we had a superb time, the children quickly had their fill of wildlife and were more interested in the swimming pool.

But they had learnt something - as had I. As we drove away my son spotted some impalas. ‘Look a Bush Big Mac,’ he shouted, to which I added: ‘Actually it’s a harem of Big Macs.’