Africa is filled with faction fighting, atrocious roads and corrupt officials. Cities once smart with manicured parks, well-kept verges and sparkling buildings now lay in ruins - grass growing through the tar, tiles long since fallen off roofs of once magnificent buildings, road signs rusty and illegible, glassless windows boarded up against the elements with plastic and cardboard. Africa is crammed with raging water thundering through gorges, sheer cliffs dropping hundreds of metres and magnificent beasts. However these views made by divinities are seldom seen by the average tourist. Accustomed to wide clean boulevards, working infrastructure and a stable environment, Westerners are reluctant to venture into the wild Wild West that is the Dark Continent. Images of Africa in upheaval flicker across TV screens frequently - documentaries of her wildlife only rarely.

South Africa has experienced its share of violent battles and tourism certainly took a low road a decade ago when rioting, faction fighting and tribalism boiled over near famous tourist locations. Reports of the incidents flashed around the world and with in a week SA was hammered by its inability to contain the trouble. Wide spread cancellations from the overseas community forced the government to take command of the situation as thousands of jobs were threatened by a few. Tourism certainly still has pockets of long fingered hierarchy demanding that silver crosses their palm before you may proceed and probably always will have. However the Mbeki government, girded heavily by the opposition party has taken an increasingly intolerant view of nationals that dig South Africa's grave with their greedy paws. Corrupt officials are quickly exposed then prosecuted. No-one is leading the cry for their blood more than the newly emerging black middle class. They are sick to their back teeth of deceit and treachery and knowing full well that it is their new and happy way of life which will be directly injured by those that hold dear a banana republic mentality.

All this enthusiasm for order and ethics in the establishment has allowed tourism to present a slick, well-run face to the critical foreigner, especially in those sleepy districts where embellished accounting procedures and salaries for fictitious staff drained money destined for re-tarring roads and repairing government-owned game fences. When the state owns one of the largest national parks in the world only madmen would demolish it along with the millions of rands it produces. The light has been seen and whistle blowers prowl the halls ready to summons the cavalry the minute a renegade is detected.

South Africa has many conservation areas but there is a wondrous place where scraggly-manned lions, wild dog and strong-jawed spotted hyaenas roam free. An area where you can sit in your car under the shade of a wide-girthed fig tree and note how an African elephant calmly rolls its trunk around a clump of grass, tears it from its roots and pushes it into his cavernous mouth. Watching this great animal in his natural home as he moves systematically through the valley bushveld, the air alive with chirping cicadas is surely one of life's greatest treats. You start your car and chugged forward. The vegetation turns to thorn scrub. Catching a glimpse of a pair of male bushbuck browsing amongst a dense stand of thorn trees has you reaching for the binoculars. However when suddenly a black rhino pokes its solid head from behind a wheat-coloured anthill, all attention is diverted - action guaranteed to send butterflies swooping around your stomach.

All this is found in the Kruger National Park (KNP). Laying in the east of South Africa the northern tip of the reserve touches Zimbabwe before sweeping south nearly five hundred kilometres, her borders encompassing almost two million hectares of protected land. A sanctuary while carefully managed is guided in the direction of allowing nature to perform as she has for thousands of years. The park rangers, qualified in wild life management adopt a hands off policy and only interfere when lack of intervention will mean catastrophe for the animals.



First time visitors to the park are enthralled by the big game. The biodiversity of this vast areas allows a kaleidoscope of flora and fauna to thrive. Butterflies, a myriad of insects and small mammals invites the visitor to investigate further than just the Big Five. If your interest lies with avifauna then the prolific activity amongst the indigenous canopy that is formed by very old trees in some of the rest camps will keep you pleasantly occupied.

Letaba Camp, blessed with hundreds of square metres of dappled shade, lines of unbroken shrub and built on the wide Letaba River provides a habitat which attracts birds in their droves. Almost in the middle of the KNP, Letaba Camp will provide those of you that love all things avian with an enormous range to see. Here you'll find the magnificently long-tailed Paradise whydah's flying low and hard between boughs dragging his heavy tail.

In the early morning stillness you begin your walk around the camp. Strolling past the mottled grey-white bark of the Marula, its boughs dense with leaves and green fruit, you stop to watch a European Golden Oriole pecking unsuccessfully at the leathery unripe fruit, its beak slipping off the shiny surface. Field glasses bumping on your chest your feet make no sound on the thick carpet of buffalo grass beneath. The deep doo-doo-doo of the russet-winged Burchell's coucal calling to her young catches your attention. The coucal appears ahead from under a sickle bush and moves across the path, its lumbering short strides comical to watch. You spot a bench and walk towards it. Beyond the camp fence wind begins to rustle over the land just as you reach your seat. Far off a baboon barks. Closer the grunt of a gnu is brought to your ears by the breeze. As the sun climbs higher air heats faster then rises quickly over the burning sand. It moves to the cooler micro clime of the camp and soon tickles your cheeks with its hotness. You sit in deep shade and scan the reed beds before you. A cloud of sweet air filled with the scent of apple leaf drifts past. A circling Yellow-billed Kite squeals overhead.

Sunset at Olifants Camp. The camp perches on a cliff high above the Olifants River which runs through the rocks and wide riverbed below. The river, flowing gently is not full. A movement near a broad layer of flat sandstone to the East of the water you makes you lift and train your binoculars. The glasses are cool to the touch. You twiddle the lens adjuster and the animal comes into focus. It's a large-spotted genet. The creature creeps warily from under pale-green reeds, its banded tail curling behind it, and cautiously sniffs the air. Once assured that the Black Eagle, a raptor standing nearly a metre high, has turned in for the night the genet calls softly to its young. Two small balls of fur tumble from their hiding place and gallop up to her. This evening they are beginning their lessons in stalking and catching their supper. They chase each others tails then clasp one another and wrestle. Their capers are stilled by a reprimanding hiss from their mother and quickly they single-file behind her. Within seconds they vanish into the undergrowth above the high water mark.

A warm wind prickles your skin as it blows from the North. A loud roaring grunt, followed by four shorter ones splits the air and announces the emergence from the water of a Hippopotamus. It's the territorial male. He and his school have spent the hot hours almost completely submerged in deep pools. Rivulets cascade from his large barrel-like body as he lifts his bulk from the cool murky water. His smooth naked skin glistens darkly as he moves slowly up the bank. His mouth opens wide in a yawn revealing large yellowed incisors and canine teeth - their size still visible in the dusk. Slowly his school follow. Suddenly high-pitched squeaks fill the valley. Insect-eating bats, resting during daylight hours in the cool dark cracks of the cliff beneath your feet, have launched themselves into the air for the nightly feed. Their dark shapes twist and dive almost at eye level in the open space high above the river.

The fierce yellow sun has now cooled to a dark red orb resting on the hills that rim beyond. Blue sky tinges pink then darkens to a smudged purple. Thorn trees, so green and distinct earlier take on a misty appearance as the light dims further and bat-calls skim the night. It's time for a hot shower, a cool drink and dinner in an air conditioned restaurant. Tomorrow will be another day brimming with tracking, watching and listening as the animals of the KNP reveal their traits and delight their visitors. As long as this sanctuary is valued its inhabitants will remain unharmed and future generations will appreciate the luxury of viewing animals in their natural home.