A short photo safari in South Africa

I was in South Africa for work, so I decided to take the opportunity to see a bit of the country. The Royal Madikwe turned out to be the ideal base for a short wildlife photography trip.  Royal Madikwe is a sustainable tourism place, reinvesting 20% of its profits into local community projects. You get a real sense of that involvement from the staff and the rangers.

 It is one of the biggest wildlife parks in South Africa, near the Botswana border, and it has about 60 lions. Seeing them in the wild is a big thrill.

Out on the game drives, you quickly learn that you’re not in control - the wildlife and the ranger are. You sit in a converted Land Cruiser behind a ranger with extraordinary bushcraft.

IOne moment you’re threading along a dusty track, the next a lioness is strolling past with her cubs, just a few metres away.

It was clear how protective the rangers are of the wildlife, especially the rhinos - still in demand for their horns. Because of the ongoing threat from poachers, the rangers never share rhino locations over the radio.

The only time that information is passed on is face-to-face when two ranger vehicles meet on a track. Their caution and sense of responsibility not just to the clients but to the animals is clear.

You never leave the vehicle; the ranger decides the approach, the angle, the distance. It’s safer for you, and crucially, safer for the animals.

For the photography itself, I carried two cameras - it can be tricky to swap lenses while capturing an animal or a bird - or a lovely crocodile

My main Lumix body held a 200mm lens with a two-times teleconverter - effectively 800mm - useful for distant lions or buffalo in deep shadow. My second body, the GX9 with a 50 - 200mm lens, was for closer encounters, like these zebras displaying their unique markings. 

The lodge sits deep inside the Madikwe Game Reserve, and from the moment they collected me from the arrivals area at Johannesburg Airport, they looked after me superbly. I stayed at the Tau lodge - beautiful food, excellent service.

We set off at 5:30am each morning, coffee in hand, catching the first dawn light as it touched the treetops.

We had the chance to go out again in the evening to see the nocturnal animals.

The evening drives were magical.

But the mornings were my favourite - full of possibility. In just two days I took nearly 2,000 photos. Sorting them takes patience, but every so often you find the image that seems to capture the beauty of the place and its inhabitants.