Safe arbour

Following the baobab tree trail in the northern Kruger National Park

- Janine Avery

Great, grey beasts lumber on the horizon, their bulging forms stretching the sun-baked leathery skin that holds them. Their carbuncled trunks rise heavenward, sniffing the sky for rain, hoping to be relieved from the dry African heat.

This is the northern Kruger National Park in South Africa – a place where tuskers reign supreme. While many travel northwards to see these giant beasts, I have travelled here to see a grey beauty of a different kind. For me, it’s not the shapes of elephants that are the real icons of this landscape. This is the place where baobabs roam...

While the Kruger National Park’s massive footprint dwarfs some countries, its northern regions, and the lands that border the park up here, are still remote and relatively tourist-free. Venture here and you'll struggle to find an open safari vehicle jam-packed with khaki-clad tourists wielding oversized cameras. It’s a vast, often barren landscape, particularly in the winter months, that stretches up from the popular Letaba, Olifants and Mopani rest camps, until you reach Shingwedzi and travel ever northwards to Punda Maria. Visit in the dusty dry months, like I did, and you'll thank yourself for planning for mosquito-free cooler weather, but you’ll want to stick along the riverbeds, where sightings are more frequent. And while we were lucky enough to see mating lions, a leopard in a tree, one naughty honey badger, and a pack of playful hyena pups in this central section, it was from Punda Maria rest camp onwards that the magic really happened.

Way up north