Travel: the best ethical safaris in South Africa

One way you can preserve it is by donating to wildlife charities. Another is by going on safari with ethical operators who invest in their communities and conservation. The South African government calculates that every tourist supports 10 local people, and as their economy is currently in even worse shape than ours, every dollar makes a real difference and you can go there with a clean conscience.

You can go on safari all over South Africa, and it’s not all about the Big Five (lion, elephant, Cape buffalo, leopard and rhino). Grootbos private nature reserve in the Western Cape offers flower safaris where you can track down charismatic major flora. Grootbos sits at the heart of the world's smallest "floral kingdom", which contains more species than the entire Amazon rainforest.

The Afrikaans word for the terrain is "fynbos" which at first glance looks like a grouse moor, but where there are only four heathers in Scotland, the fynbos has more than 600, along with the king proteas that are South Africa’s national flower. The elegant lodge sits at the heart of a forest of ancient milkwood trees, festooned with trailing wisps of lichen. As befits an enchanted forest, there are also poison apples, but in the place of Snow White’s lonely tower, Grootbos has 16 suites with sweeping views down to Walker Bay where you can dive with great white sharks all year round, or, between September and December, watch the majestic southern right whales when they arrive after their 2,500-mile journey from Antarctica to calve and mate.

Grootbos invests in its community through the Green Futures Initiative, where local teenagers are trained as gardeners, and every year three of them are sent on sabbatical to the Eden Project in Cornwall. They’ve also somehow persuaded Fifa to sponsor a floodlit, all-weather football pitch where the kids can develop their sporting potential too: Grootbos is a beautiful place, with a lot of soul.

Four hours driving east along the Garden Route will take you to Gondwana game reserve, where Mark and Wendy Rutherfoord have set up an protection programme for species on the verge of extinction including cheetah and the desert black rhino. The estate has views across the rolling hills to the Langeberg mountains, and its open-plan lodge sits above an infinity pool, surrounded by 14 dome-shaped thatched huts. It has a welcoming atmosphere, especially on the chilly evenings when a fire is lit, decanters of port are passed around and guests swap stories of their day’s adventures. The lodge’s muted, earth-toned palette continues in the circular huts, where a skylight above the king-size bed allows you to watch the stars of the Milky Way drift silently across the heavens.

After a nibble of rusk and a gulp of coffee, the first drive of the day leaves at 6am and the first thing our guide Brian asks us to do is disable the tracking in our smartphones: poachers have learned how to use the data from photographs posted to the internet to track down their targets.

As we rumble along the dusty track in his Land Rover he tells us the reserve was founded in 2007, with a group of four orphaned elephants. Today they have a fully established breeding herd, along with antelope and other prey species that support their pride of lions. We see their tracks everywhere but it takes us two days before we finally meet the females lazing among the fynbos surrounded by their cubs, which were the first to be born in this part of Africa for more than 150 years. It’s not all bad news in the fight for survival, and places like Gondwana are making a real difference.

South Africa is five times the size of the British Isles, so it’s quite a journey from the Cape to the Kruger National Park, but if you’re serious then it is the place to go to see the Big Five. The Kruger is synonymous with safari and in its 20,000sq km of true wilderness the animals move across the land as freely as they have done since the dawn of time. Our ancestors first confronted them on foot, and that is still the most exciting way to safari, because you are sharing their paths, following their tracks and feeling the surge of adrenalin that comes from knowingly taking your life in your hands.

We stay with Africa on Foot, which does what it says on the tin twice a day. Walking through the bush is a thrilling experience, which we simply could not have done without our guide Mike and our tracker Greg. They carry rifles, but their intention is never to use them, and their aim is to help us see the animals without the animals seeing us. That’s why I recommend investing in proper safari clothing which will help you blend in: the best stuff, from companies such as the Safari Store protects you from sunburn and insect bites too.

The camp is refreshingly simple, as is the food. Solar power means electricity is rationed, but you can escape from the heat in your rondavel or take a dip in the circular pool. The morning drive starts before first light at 5am and much of the time is spent looking at the tracks of all the beasts that have passed in the night, learning to read the signs that tell you what just happened near where you are. It’s a very meditative experience. For much of the time you walk in single file, in absolute silence, and the guides communicate only by gesture. Safari is at least as much about hope as it is about experience, and in our time at Africa on Foot we twice miss seeing leopards by moments, but that doesn’t diminish the pleasure: if anything it makes us appreciate being there even more.

On the other hand, if you’d feel short-changed if a day went by without seeing the stars of the show, then Tintswalo will not disappoint. It has its own airstrip if you’re in a hurry, but once you’re there you won’t want to leave. The building, modelled on the ruins of the medieval palace of Great Zimbabwe, is a stunning piece of architecture, and its six enormous private suites are luxuriously decorated, each with its own pool and private deck overlooking the river.

All safari lodges will welcome you with a cool and refreshing drink: ours is immeasurably enhanced when an elephant walks out of the forest and comes to drink from a borehole literally feet away from us.

Tintswalo is a private reserve next door to the famous Sabi Sands, which is big cat central. What makes being there so special is that even at peak season, the lodge has no more than a dozen guests so effectively you’ve got 100 square miles of wilderness to yourself.

Fritz our guide is very experienced and within a few minutes of the start of our first evening drive we are on the trail of a pride of lions. A crackle over the radio, however, sends us haring off in the opposite direction across the savannah where we arrive to find a leopard recovering from killing and eating an impala. We watch it for more than half an hour, entranced.

There isn’t much we don't see at Tintswalo: all the big five as well as giraffe, crocodile, eagle and even cheetah, one of the 10 most endangered animals in Africa. The lodge is luxurious, the food delicious and the game viewing first class but what makes Tintswalo special is its people, who make us feel more like friends than guests.

On our last rainy morning as we follow two male lions, we come across a pair of black rhinoceros. As they graze they gradually draw closer and closer, and at one point their great horns come so close I could reach out of the Landcruiser and touch them. I hope they’re still there twenty years from now.

TRAVEL NOTES

Getting there

Tim Maguire went to South Africa with KLM, which flies from Glasgow and Edinburgh via Amsterdam to Cape Town and Johannesburg from £455 return. Visit klm.com.

Where to stay

Africa on Foot (africaonfoot.com) – 2,495 South African rand (about £146) per person per night.

Tintswalo Safari Lodge (tintswalo.com/safari) – 6,980 rand (£409) pppn

Grootbos private nature reserve (grootbos.com/en/home) – 5,170 rand (£303) ppn

Gondwana game reserve (gondwanagr.co.za).