LUXURY RESORTS: Royal Malewane, Thornybush Reserve Hoedspruit

The guides at Royal Malewane aim to please. We all know that going on safari is not about seeing particular animals, it is about letting the game drive unfold, nevertheless it is a mark of a good guide and tracker is when they try and accommodate their client's desires. So once we bemoan the fact that we haven't yet seen any elephants close-up they bush bash into the scrub and bring us face to face with an impressively large bull elephant. Then, knowing cheetah have been spotted at the furthest reaches of the reserve we belt along sandy tracks to be rewarded by the site of two graceful slender animals padding through the bush. On the way back several giraffes sail across our path, swaying gently as if blown by a gentle breeze. I can't help wondering as we bounce along the dirt track what Elton wore on the drives; a rhinestone studded safari suit perhaps or a touch of leopard print?

The day we leave the Limpopo I am sitting on the deck minding my own business when a long wrinkled trunk curls over into the pool and sucks. I am not about to argue with a creature that weighs up to 6,500 kilos and is known to intimidate lions and I'm not about to go for a swim either. There is such a thing as getting too closed to the wildlife and this elephant is wild, not a circus trickster. Instead I sit enthralled and very, very still; too scared to back off. I am so close I can see its eyelashes and the grain of its wrinkled skin.

David Furness wrote "bliss, bliss, bliss" in the Royal Suite's visitor's book after one visit and I'm inclined to agree. I wonder as I idly flip through the exalted names running through its pages if Elton will ever stop on my name and exclaim in delight at the prospect of having shared an experience with me? Somehow I doubt it.