We were standing under a velvet African sky, dotted with countless stars, beside a Land Rover in a game reserve, having spent the previous 45 minutes in the company of a leopard. We had found her in the light of the evening and stayed with her until it was pitch black. Cameras whirred as Zane, our driver, pulled the vehicle backwards and forwards so that everyone could get a good view. But the best thing was to just sit and watch. Zane and Doc, the tracker who sat on a seat suspended in front of the bonnet like bait, said we had been incredibly lucky.
Leopards are rare and, normally, extremely shy.
As long as you can sleep on a plane, you feel fine. So it was that 14 hours after leaving Heathrow on a Thursday evening, we were cruising out of Skukuza airport in the Kruger National Park, a 75-minute hop from Johannesburg. Within 30 seconds, we came across a troop of baboons sitting on the road, then some impala scuttled across. We all raced for our cameras only to be told by the driver not to get excited as there would be no shortage of baboons, impala, or anything else. It is fenced all the way round.