Family safari Southern Africa

This was our first time to Africa and it was amazing.

We had friends who went to Africa with Encompass Africa for their honeymoon 10 years ago and it had always stuck in my head that I’d like to visit one day. I didn’t ask them too many questions about what they did, I just liked the idea of going on safari.

So I contacted Encompass Africa, and they asked me all sorts of questions to narrow down what we wanted out of our holiday, and then made recommendations for us.

 We ended up going to South Africa and a country that not many people have been to… Lesotho.

 We started off in South Africa, with a four-night safari at Elephant Plains Game Lodge in the Sabi Sand Game Reserve. It was incredible. We loved the accommodation. Everything was just beautiful. The food, the experience… everything was amazing. And of course the wildlife. We saw everything. Everything! I missed the game drive on the last day because I was packing, but the girls went and they even saw lions mating, which was pretty special for all the tourists to see.

After that we went to Cape Town, which is just the most breathtaking city. To me it’s quite similar to Sydney in its beauty and being right on the coast, but you’ve also got Table Mountain too. On one of our day tours we went up the mountain and the views from the top are just amazing. We also did a winery tour in Franschhoek which we really enjoyed, but our favourite day trip was going with a nonprofit organisation to visit the Uthando township. That was a very special and meaningful day.

I think it was really special having a black South African guide because he shared so much about his country’s culture and history, especially apartheid. It really helped us to understand and experience it authentically. Learning about history is what we love, and it was fascinating.

 After South Africa it was time for Lesotho! We had a friend who went there last year and it just sounded so magical. I talked about it with Danica when we were planning our trip, and she connected us with Roof of Africa, the tour company that took us there.

It was amazing, amazing, amazing!.

It was so beautiful. It was so untouched by the modern world. Just endless green mountains for the whole four days we were there. It was a very long drive, but totally worth it. I’m sure there must be other cars somewhere, but no one drives so you don’t see anybody – until we got to the city we were practically the only car!

 The landscape was breathtaking. It was just so beautiful. And the people of Lesotho are so beautiful, too. They are very innocent and lead a very simple life. The children walk to school every day for two hours through the mountains and often in the rain. There are shepherds that are teenagers and have next to nothing. It was a great experience, being able to teach my daughters what life is like for these people, and how privileged their own lives are. They loved the whole experience.

 We went to see dinosaur footprints, visited remote villages, picnicked by gorgeous rivers and waterfalls, and saw ancient Bushmen rock paintings.

Our trip to Africa was such an extraordinary experience. The highlights for us were definitely the safari and Lesotho, and if Encompass Africa has other people who are thinking of travelling to Lesotho I would absolutely recommend it.