In my family, there is great preparation to go to the Hluhluwe-Umfolozi Game Reserve in Zululand in northern KwaZulu-Natal. It all starts the evening before, when my aunt prepares breakfast - hard-boiled eggs, sandwiches, a flask of coffee and cold drinks - for us to share at our usual picnic spot in the park.
Our route through the park has been established via a long process of trial and error; we have long learnt which roads have the most game traffic and which are the best viewing spots.
Next in the great preparation comes a very (very) early wake-up call. In Zululand, where temperatures exceed 30°C almost every day of the year, game viewing is best done in the early morning, before the heat sets in and the animals seek the coolness of the shade. Under the branches, away from the searing sun, they are sheltered and camouflaged, and literally disappear from view.
So, on this particular September Sunday morning, at a bright and sparkling 6am, I find myself willingly dragging cooler boxes to the car to make it to the game reserve before the gates open at 7am.
By 6.30am, my aunt is still in her pyjamas and it is a 30-minute, hasty drive from the village of kwaMbonambi, where my aunt and uncle live, to make our designated starting time.
The Hluhluwe-Umfolozi Game Reserve is to the west of Lake St Lucia and about an hour's drive from Empangeni and Richards Bay, northern KZN's two largest towns.
The park is the oldest game reserve in Africa. It was established in 1895 to protect the region's white rhino, on the brink of extinction at the time.
It hosts the Big Five - lion, leopard, elephant, water buffalo and rhino, as well as water buck, kudu, nyala, wild dog, hyena, baboons, warthog, tortoises, crocodile, python, vultures, innumerable bird species and the inevitable impala.
I say "inevitable" because the small, light-brown buck occupy the lowest rung of the game food chain and thus breed like rabbits. There are literally thousands of them in the park.
In my family, we call impala "unmentionables" because they are so numerous and we have seen them so often that they are not worth stopping the car to look at. It is an unspoken agreement that we just drive on, and hope something more interesting is further down the road.
Hluhluwe-Umfolozi occupies an area larger than any city in South Africa; it is roughly three times the size of Cape Town and boasts flat plains (perfect for rhino), rolling hills (perfect for the animals to hide in) and the Umfolozi River winding through.
The trees are stunted and flat-topped from the heat and, being the beginning of spring, the grass has been dried red and yellow by the winter sun. It is a clear, bright day - perfect game-viewing weather.
At the gates (having just made 7am), we fill in the South African citizen register (foreigners pay more to enter parks managed by Ezemvulo KZN Wildlife), pay our R40 each entrance fee and head out onto the tarred road into the park.
Today it is only my aunt, myself and my partner, Alison, who have made the trip. We follow the standard game-spotting technique: my aunt, driving, concentrates on the car's position in relation to the spotted game - just in case said spotted game turns out to be an elephant/rhino that decides to charge; Alison, in the back seat, is responsible for spotting game on the driver's side as well as long-range spotting (that is, she is in charge of the binoculars in case said game turns out to be a rock). I, the passenger, get to concentrate on my side of the road and to take photos.
It is Alison's first visit to a game reserve. She brings good luck because within 10 minutes we see three white rhino grazing on a flat plain on the right hand side of the road.
They are perhaps not oblivious to our presence, but don't charge away (or towards us) either. Their massive grey bodies sway as they forage. A little way on two giraffe crane their long necks towards our car, as if to get a closer look at its occupants. They stand a little way off the road, grazing the top tree branches. The creatures tower over the hills behind them.
Further into the park we see nyala (before they scuttle off), zebra and a troop of baboons. The males make it obvious that our intrusion is not welcome and quickly ferret off the young.
We are lucky enough to see a male nyala before he vanishes into the bush. His legs are yellow and striped, his back spotted white and his nose has one long, elegant white stripe across it, as though God got carried away with a paint brush.
Just before our breakfast site we see a combi that had stopped on the side of the road and one of its occupants standing outside the vehicle, adjusting his pants.
"There are giraffe just around the corner," he smiles at us before heading back into the cab.
We smile and nod but privately wonder at his bravery/ignorance. About 10m away, obviously unnoticed by the man and his friends, is a white rhino beneath a tree. If the rhino had taken a dislike to him, the man would not have stood a chance.
Our breakfast spot overlooks the river; the hill sloping down to the water.
Small coloured birds twitter in the trees. We nab a wooden table and bench under several trees and watch as the mother of the family next to us tries to repack her children into the back of a bakkie.
Back in the car, and within minutes we spot a giraffe so close we almost miss him. Without looking up, the only thing we can see are his legs, perfectly camouflaged with the shadows of trees falling on them. The giant munches on without much interest.
It is rare to see an elephant in Hluhluwe-Umfolozi, but my aunt is fascinated with the creatures and regularly announces we are on the trail of a herd based on the droppings on the road. There, a metre from the road and bearing down fast, is a massive bull, his ears flaring. My aunt puts the car into reverse; the bull stomps his feet to charge. My aunt backs the car away quickly.
An elephant can overturn and roll a vehicle in seconds. The bull stops as if to reconsider his options, and then calmly walks over to the other side, disappearing into the bush. We breath a collective sigh of awe and relief. Soon after we round the corner, within sight of the bridge over the river, and frighten a buffalo on the road. It looks up at us and jolts back into the long grass. Big Five sighting number three.
The Sunali loop, a curl of road around an area of the park that my family has always found particularly lucrative for game spotting, yields nothing after a few sightings of zebra and baboon. We begin to despair, my aunt mentions the possibility of lion and Alison uses the binoculars to scan the trees for leopard.
According to the car thermometer, it is 37°C outside. It is doubtful we will see anything other than shadows in this heat. At about 2pm, we drive back to the gate and cross the river bridge and there, grazing on water reeds among wallowing water buffalo, is a large elephant. Cars are backed up on the road to get a better view.
The elephant turns its back to us and grazes on. The buffalo don't even bother to look at us.
The reserve is the oldest in Africa, I think and smile. The land was theirs long before humans .
- South Africans pay R40 entrance per person into Hluhluwe-Umfolozi. You might be asked for your ID as proof of citizenship.