Birthday safari celebration

I’d never been to Africa before, but it had been a lifelong bucket-list destination for me.

 I had a big birthday last year [2023] and I just thought, I’m going to do Africa in the way that I want to do Africa. And so that’s what I did. [Editor’s note – it really was a fabulous birthday safari celebration]

I had my heart set on Botswana from the start. One of my good friends, who is very well travelled, had been there and raved about the experience and the abundant wildlife, and told me I would love it.

We both used to work in travel so we’re quite savvy when it comes to agents and the who, what, why and where of travel. I initially reached out to a travel company in New South Wales and got the usual generic response. I also looked at some basic itineraries on various websites, but I knew from the get-go that none of these were right for me. I wanted to do a tailored fly-in/fly-out type of trip, so I could see and do exactly what I wanted.

I knew I needed specialist knowledge and, luckily for me, my friend told me about the company that she’d used: Encompass Africa. She is very hard to please and usually comes back from a holiday with a list of what didn’t work, but she couldn’t speak highly enough of Jono and Danica from Encompass Africa and said that Botswana was one of her top three trips ever.

And as soon as I had a chat with Danica I knew that that’s where my trip would be created too. I had an instant connection with her. Because I’d worked as a travel agent myself, I knew that some people speak to multiple different agents, suck all the information out of them and then either go and book their trip with another company or organise it themselves. I assured Danica from day dot that I wasn’t shopping around and I wasn’t going to use her expertise and then take it elsewhere. I asked if we could tinker and play together to create what it was that I wanted to do, and then Danica put together a few options and I said ‘no’ to this and ‘yes’ to that, and then it was done! It didn’t take us long at all, to be honest.

 My friend had said make sure you go to Cape Town, so I went there first and did my own thing for three or four days and just loved it.

 After Cape Town I flew up to Zimbabwe and did the Victoria Falls. It was so fantastic, and the helicopter flight I took over the Falls was a real highlight. I stayed at a place called Shongwe Lookout and it was just so lovely in all facets: the food, the people, the location. I couldn’t fault it, I absolutely loved the place.

My next destination was Botswana.

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 experiences.

I was pretty optimistic that I would see a leopard, but to actually spend 45 minutes tracking one of these animals 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.

 This all happened down in the Moremi Game Reserve, when I was staying at Khwai Guest House. On another early morning game drive the driver suddenly stopped and we watched as about 60 or 70 elephants walked straight in front of our jeep. Our guide said he hadn’t seen that many elephants together, particularly that close to camp, probably ever. It was unforgettable.

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!

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 Oddballs. When you’re staying on the Okavango Delta waterways, 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.

And that’s the thing with Encompass Africa – they’ve actually been to all these places so they can give personal recommendations.

I’m a big Encompass Africa fan, as you call tell. I’m not easily impressed and neither is my friend who recommended them to me. So when she raved about Danica and Jono and the service they provided, it was huge praise coming from a really experienced travel agent. I can’t recommend Botswana highly enough as a destination. And make sure you go with Danica and Jono, because they will make a good trip absolutely amazing!