I loved everything about my entire holiday, but I’m a cat person so the highlight of my trip, 100%, was the time I got to spend with the big cats. And not just the time, but the quality of those encounters.

I was pretty optimistic that I would see a leopard on my trip, but to actually spend 45 minutes tracking one trying to catch its prey, and then to see three different types of leopards all in the same day and all up really, really close, just blew my mind.

We also stumbled across many prides of lions, including one that had obviously just eaten. The lions were so fat they could hardly move and we just sat there next to them in the Jeep for an hour and a half, watching the babies play. It was just surreal. Another time we had lions prowling around our open Jeep and one put its massive great paw on the tyre right next to where I was sitting.

This all happened down in the Moremi Game Reserve, when I was staying at Khwai Guest House. It’s out in the middle of nowhere and so dry, and it definitely wasn’t where I expected to see the most wildlife, but it’s where I saw all the lions and the leopards.

Another memorable sighting also happened in Khwai. It was about 5.30am and we’d only just hopped into the jeep for an early morning game drive. We were barely a few kilometres out of camp and didn’t expect to see anything that early in the morning. I was thinking I could almost have a bit of a snooze for the first half an hour until we got a bit deeper into the park. Wrong!

 The driver suddenly stopped and said that there were elephants to our left: not just a few, but a whole herd. We watched as about 60 or 70 elephants walked straight in front of our jeep, including lots and lots of babies elephants, which I absolutely love. Our guide said he hadn’t seen that many elephants together, particularly that close to camp, probably ever. It was unforgettable.

I loved all three of the places I stayed at in Botswana: as well as Khwai Guest House, I also stayed at River View Lodge in Kazungula and Oddballs Camp in the Okavango Delta. Danica convinced me to spend three nights at Oddballs Camp, saying it would be the perfect place to celebrate my birthday… and she was right. It was just amazing.

On the big day I woke up in Khwai and spent the morning on a game drive there, and then flew down to Oddballs in the afternoon – so I had birthday cakes and singing and dancing in both camps. Twice the fun!

 Oddballs is on the water, so it was a completely different experience to the other camps. As soon as I got there I understood why Danica recommended it. When you’re staying on the Okavango Delta, everything comes to you. So you’re sitting in this incredible camp out in the middle of nowhere, and the giraffes come down to drink and there’s a family of hippos in the water in front of you. Oddballs is like nowhere on Earth, quite literally.

 Because we were on the Delta there was nothing motorised, so every morning my guide would come and pick me up in a mokoro [traditional canoe] and off we went for the day. It was just the two of us and the whole experience was absolutely stunning. The serenity of travelling like this is beyond compare. He was a beautiful guide and such a lovely, lovely man. Everyone at Oddballs was beautiful, actually; the whole staff are just very special.