Luxury safari, no charge

Tracking big game in Kenya is a macho business. Which is why Brian Viner was glad to be escorted by the hired guns

''How would you whack him, Freddie?" the moustachio-ed Texan enquired of his buddy. They were looking at a bull elephant ambling down to the dry bed of the Mabrak River, and as Freddie suggested what calibre of rifle he would need, where he would position himself and what he would do with his crosshairs, I shot them a look of disgust. Actually, I rather surprised myself. I could scarcely have been more outraged to overhear two muggers planning their assault on a granny.

But then I had formed quite a sentimental attachment to the elephants during my three days at Ulusaba, Richard Branson's spectacular game reserve at the edge of South Africa's vast Kruger National Park. In the Kruger, happily, big-game hunters are denied their kicks. Indeed, Ulusaba's rangers will not shoot an animal even if it is slowly starving to death. To do so would be to interfere with the ecosystem, which is considered sacrosanct.

"An animal might only be shot if it has been damaged by humans, by a car, or a snare, or subsistence poaching," explained Craig, our ranger. Or, of course, in self-defence. It was reassuring to see Craig cradling his rifle, as we headed into the bush every sunrise and sunset, in search of the so-called Big Five – lion, elephant, rhino, buffalo and leopard.

Safari rangers are like ski guides; burnished, bright-eyed paragons of rugged masculinity so absurdly comfortable in a sometimes hostile environment that, as a man in their charge, you feel faintly emasculated, and seek consolation in the idea of them trying to cross Piccadilly Circus, in the rain, on a Saturday night.

Still, sitting alongside Craig meant feeling safe as well as faintly emasculated, which was fine by me. He had survived three full charges by enraged elephants, he casually told us. There are three ways of spotting when elephants think you have unreasonably invaded their personal space, said Craig. They will stop feeding and lift their heads, and their posture will stiffen. There may follow a so-called mock display of aggression, which involves a stilted charge and much loud trumpeting.

"I once had a teacher like that," I chirped. Craig did not smile. If the elephant starts rolling up his trunk, he added, then it means he is intending a full charge. "That one there," he said, indicating a 35-year-old bull grazing 20 yards away, "would flip this truck around like tissue paper."

We had arrived a day earlier at Skukuza Airport, after a 70-minute flight from Johannesburg. Scarcely were we out of the airport in an Ulusaba van when five zebra traversed the road in front of us (cue some obvious quips about zebra crossings). They turned out to be the last zebra we saw during our three-day visit, and we only glimpsed a couple of giraffe from afar. The Kruger covers 2.2 million hectares, criss-crossed by 600kms of road. Longleat it ain't. But we could hardly claim to be deprived of spectacle.

After a two-hour drive we arrived at Ulusaba. It is a magical place, in the heart of the Sabi Sand Private Game Reserve near the western perimeter of the Kruger, and divided into two; Safari Lodge, which is at ground level, and Rock Lodge, which stands proudly on an escarpment not unlike the one on which Mufasa stands, showing off Simba, at the beginning of The Lion King (an observation I chose not to share with Craig).

But we stayed at Safari Lodge, a collection of sumptuous suites housed in stone "huts" scattered around a grand central dining area. I was assigned a building across the river at the end of a wooden rope bridge, in the heart of the bush. I felt rather intrepid, at least until I stood on the deck outside my room one morning, and spotted fresh footprints in the dew. Probably baboon, I was told.

The dining-room – its centrepiece a magnificent table of Rhodesian teak roughly the length of a cricket pitch, the chairs around it decorated with impala, springbok and kudu horns – has views over the bush extending some 40 miles.

Ian, a former ranger himself, recalled a visit here by an elderly Shangaan tribesman some weeks earlier, who had politely asked him whether he could attend to the graves of his mother and baby sister.

"I asked him whether he used to work here. He smiled and said 'no, it was our land'. Obviously he had left long before the lodges were built here, forced to migrate because of tribal warfare or economic hardship. But it still made me feel pretty humble."

At Safari Lodge that first night we ate kudu steaks. All the guests here sit at the same table. At Ulusaba the chat never flags, as the guests, with varying degrees of one-upmanship, compare what they have seen that day.

The second night we were served warthog stew. "Not again," I complained to my neighbour, a travel agent from Los Angeles. "I was hoping for something a bit different. We eat warthog stew all the time in London." In the ensuing, puzzled silence, I tucked in. It was rich, gamey and delicious.

Breakfast, an exotic buffet, took place after we had returned from dawn Safari. The early-morning safaris were best, not least because of the awe-inspiring sunrise. We got to know the sounds of the bush, too, some of them from the most improbable sources. Most memorable of all was the cry of the rutting male impala. Almost tear-jerkingly elegant to look at, they sound like Bernard Manning belching in the bath. Indeed, nature plays lots of similar tricks. The Maribou storks walk so awkwardly, yet fly so gracefully.

There are, Craig told us, 380 species of bird in the Kruger. We saw some of the most dazzling, too, among them a fiery-necked nightjar, a Birchell's coucal (known locally as the rain bird; if it calls, it means rain is coming) and glossy starlings of iridescent blue. However, like the blinkered tourists who visit the Louvre and hurry past any number of sublime works of art to gaze at the Mona Lisa, we were intent mainly on seeing the Big Five. And although buffalo and leopard eluded us, the others we found.

In fact, we found more elephants than we bargained for one morning, deep in the bush. Suddenly we were surrounded by a herd of 10 or 12, crashing around in a feeding frenzy.

No sooner had we seen them than Craig again pricked up his hyper-sensitive ears. A lion, somewhere to the east of us. We found him, marking his territory with a series of enormous roars. Craig recognised him as one of a pair of brothers who controlled four prides of females. We stared at him with respect.

Craig told us that if we were ever charged by a lion – as, needless to say, he had been – the thing to do is to charge back. Apparently, lions are so used to other creatures running away from them that they are thoroughly disconcerted when something runs at them, and invariably turn tail. It's the "invariably" I have a problem with.

Brian Viner travelled to Johannesburg with Virgin Atlantic (economy class from £500 per person). Rooms at Ulusaba start from 6,000 rand (£375) per night, prices inclusive of meals and based on two people sharing. Transfers from Johannesburg to Ulusaba cost from £150 per person. To book, call 0800 716 919