An Aussie Safari

Setting off on a sunset game drive. Enjoying a sundowner with wilderness views. Drifting off to sleep to the sound of giant, lumbering creatures just outside the door ...

- Shamus Sillar

I ’ve been doing all those things, but no, I’m not in Kenya or South Africa. This is Bamurru Plains, a luxury safari lodge in Australia’s “Top End”; it’s reached via a 30-minute connecting flight from Darwin, or you can hire a vehicle and drive there in three hours. I’ve booked a four-day “Ultimate Wilderness Experience”, which is the ideal way to get a taste of the area’s unique flora and fauna – and a taste of the five-star food and wine that guests are treated to each night.

DAY 1 Far from being an inconvenient extra leg of travel, the short flight in the Cessna 5-seater plane from Darwin Airport to Bamurru Plains is a highlight of my trip. We pass above the undulating waterways and mangrove flats of the Adelaide and Mary Rivers, a kaleidoscope of blues, greens, yellows and browns. It quickly becomes obvious why these landscapes have inspired local Aboriginal painters for thousands of years.

Our destination is Swim Creek (don’t get any ideas from the name – this is crocodile country!) and our young pilot Liam expertly guides the light plane onto a dirt-and-dust airstrip in the middle of nowhere. Waiting there is Macca, the Bamurru manager; after introductions, we climb into his Land Rover for the 15-minute drive through bushland to the lodge.

Bamurru Plains is part of the Wild Bush Luxury collection of remote Australian properties and experiences. It’s set in a picturesque corner of the Northern Territory’s largest buffalo farm, with just ten safari bungalows – so, 300 square kilometres of wilderness is shared by just 15 or 20 guests at a time.