In this business, aviating is mostly transactional. It’s about getting places, the journey spent buried in a laptop. Rarely is it an adventure.
But that absolutely can’t be said about my arrival at Kapama Private Game Reserve.
It was a grey, windy day and the view of the pilots battling the little Pilatus was unobstructed by anything resembling a cockpit door. It was a steep approach to the private runway, to the point that the terrain alarm sounded right as the handful of people in the cabin fell silent. I don’t get nervous easy and there were others sitting nearby that were clearly more unsettled than me. But I will admit to the heart rate heading north for a moment or two.
Of course we landed safely and of course everything was (probably) under control the whole time. Looking back, it was a fitting adrenaline rush to kick off the adventure of lifetime in the African wilderness.
As the name suggests, Kapama is a private reserve that sprawls through Limpopo, between Blyde River Valley and Kruger National Park. The park covers a whopping 13,000 hectares, the vast, vast majority of which is open bushland, populated by wild animals.
Sprinkled around the park are a number of luxury lodges. And by luxury, I mean luxury. Beautiful open fireplaces in the common areas, classic African mud wall buildings and huge, luxurious hotel rooms that look out into the wild (because who doesn’t want to see a giraffe from the bathtub).
The lodge areas are protected from the wildlife, but not to the same extent as your commercial African wildlife parks that feature big, high electric fences to house campers. This is all about subtle fencing… and warning signs that make it clear that should a wild animal really want to get in to, say, the spa area, it can. So keep a look out and don’t venture too far from the beaten path.
This is how the rich and famous go on safari – but not to claim any sort of prize. Kapama is in no way a hunting reserve. The only people you see with guns are the armed guards that either wander the perimeter of the park on the lookout for poachers, or follow the park’s handful of rhinos around as their personal bodyguards, should poachers manage to breach the fortress.
Now, given I’m neither rich nor famous, you may be wondering what on earth I was actually doing in this incredible pocket of the world. Well, I was there to celebrate Ford’s flagship SUV – the Ford Everest.
Ford Australia wanting to celebrate the Everest is understandable. This year, it has taken it to the all-conquering Toyota Prado to lead the way in the large SUV and 4×4 SUV categories. September alone was a record sales month at almost 3000 units and year-to-date sales are up 79 per cent.
And that’s how I found myself in the middle of South Africa, staying in a room that I could otherwise never afford, watching wild impala wander past the window while I caught up on emails each morning.
When you’re in a private game reserve, there is nothing that’s not a safari. Once you’re on any one of the internal roads, you’re on safari. That’s why there’s a very conservative 40 km/h speed limit. We know full well in Australia that wildlife doesn’t generally have a great deal of road sense. And if you reckon a big roo can make a mess of your car, imagine what an elephant can do…
As soon as we landed we were immersed in the experience. On the relatively short drive from the airstrip to the lodge we were inundated with close encounters with giraffes. Which are undoubtedly the animals with the biggest axe the grind over the ‘Big Five’ classification. How does the humble water buffalo get a call up, but these fascinating, elegant beasts miss out? (Turns out the genesis of the Big Five is the danger posed to humans while hunting them, but that’s really sad so we won’t dwell on that one).
After the trip from the airstrip to the lodge it was time for an afternoon cruise for more amazing animal spotto. The drivers’ briefings hit a little different in Africa. You hear things that you wouldn’t hear on most car launches. Like, “if your car has a sun roof, please don’t stick your head through it as that can be taken as a sign of aggression by dangerous animals that will then gore or maul you”.
Righto. The interior of the Everest is looking even better than usual.
After a brief stop at the lodge it was back into the wilderness to properly being the (figurative) hunt for the Big Five. At our disposal was a fleet of Everests, the South African specs of which are mostly comparable to what is available in Australia.
There was a mix of the biturbo, 2.0-litre models and the more popular 3.0-litre V6. Which is obviously the better car, but for the level of work we were doing, on pristine gravel roads, both were more than capable.
In all of our travels on the first evening, there was only one small stretch of deep sand, which was easy to navigate regardless of car spec thanks to sand mode. Touch of a button and the rear diff is locked, traction and stability are relaxed and gears are held longer to allow momentum to do its job.
More important was interior space as occupants scrambled over seats trying to get the best vantage point every time the lead spotter stopped the group because there was an animal about. The thing about wild game parks is that you don’t really want to get out of the car (for reasons that also involve goring and mauling), so there was a lot of back and forth in the cabins.
So many of the animals are easy enough to see. Giraffes stick out above the trees. Zebras wander across the road. There are impala and guineafowl everywhere.
But spotting a lion in the wild is incredibly difficult. Even when it’s really not far away. Our first of the Big Five came on that first evening, and it took almost everybody in the group an age to see it. Despite it being, well, right there. Turns out these apex predators camouflage pretty well.
Day two was a completely different experience. Put the animal bingo sheet away and get ready to head to the clouds.
Quite literally.
The task was a climb to the top of Mariepskop, the best part of 2000 metres above sea level and the highest point of the Blyde River Canyon. The change in landscape was remarkable, going from your classic African bushland to what, thanks to the wet weather, felt like a tropical jungle.
The climb was a sterner test for the Everest, but in no way overly stern. A river crossing was a case of locking the diff, putting it in low range and being remotely competent at four-wheel-driving. There’s mud and ruts mode, that dumbs down traction and stability for tread clearing and maintaining momentum. There’s a slippery mode when you want to tighten up the electronic intervention.
In anything, it was all a little too easy. But I guess that’s the pitfall of modern four-wheel-driving. Cars like the Everest are just so capable, at the cost of the purist. The undeniable upside is that so many beautiful parts of the country, whether it be South Africa or Australia, are so much more accessible thanks to vehicles like this.
The climb up Mariepskop was spectacular, but it didn’t take long to realise the vast, sweeping views we’d been promised at the top weren’t going to materialise. At best, we’d be breaking through the tip of the cloud and looking down on it. But we didn’t even get that.
We ended up right inside a thick blanket of cloud. It should have been a disappointment, but it was impossibly cool. Have you ever wound down the windows and watched thick cloud float through your car?
This was meant to be the non-wildlife day, but again, this is Africa. During a filming stop on the way back down the hill, we were interrupted by two groups of wild baboons, either upset with each other or collectively upset that we were hanging around. We didn’t get close enough to find out which was the case.
We’d had a very good run of animal spotting from the Everests, but our final trek in Kapama was down to the experts. Open top cars built for safari.
It was the perfect end to a perfect adventure. Elephants feasting on riverbed foliage. Water buffalos meandering along the banks. The biggest crocodile you can imagine. More and more giraffes (as if you’d get sick of them) and a lengthy hunt for a white rhino that was ultimately fruitless, but exhilarating.
On reflection, maybe Ford got this event wrong. The car should be the hero, right? Tough gig, when you’re up against some of most spectacular scenery and animals on the face of the planet.
At the same time, I’ll never see an Everest again without remembering this once in a lifetime experience.
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