The ringing of the phone pierces the darkness. I surge out of bed, lunging towards my 04h30 wake-up call.

“Hello, Michele speaking.” Apparently, a polite response to the ranger telling you it’s safari time is hugely amusing and I don’t think I lived that down for the remainder of the trip.

The usual procedure is to meet for a warming beverage, before heading out into the wilderness, so I stand with the other expectant souls, juggling handbag, camera bag, teacup and saucer (not enough hands) trying to motivate my biscuit to leap into my mouth unaided. I give up until my coffee is finished.

Then its time to greet the African Dawn.

Standing on the back wheel, I swing my leg over the side of the game vehicle and hop aboard. I’m a pro at this, by now. I tuck my gloves, beanie and sun cream (yes, a truly weird combination) into the storage flap in front of me and lift my face to the sky as we move off. You can taste it – the damp coolness of morning. The wash of rain from the previous night, and the musky scent of the animals, as yet unseen.

The vehicle whips around to the beat of the bushveld: a hoopoe, a dove, the rev of an engine and the beep of the radio as our guide calls in our departure. Yes. These are the sounds of Africa, the promise of what lies ahead.

Even though I am sitting two rows back, I hear the ranger tell the tracker ‘ndlovu’ after his brief conversation over the communications system, and they chat away about route before he takes a turn-off onto a smaller dirt road. It has become standard practice to discuss animals in the Shangaan trackers’ language, so that guests don’t know which animals are being talked about. This bit of obfuscation helps prevent disappointment if the promised ‘ndlovu’ isn’t found, but also manages to maintain a sense of mystique which some younger rangers enjoy playing up.

I translate ‘ndlovu’ for my fellow guests from abroad – nothing like the show-off South African to ruin the rangers’ moment of fun.

I truly love the animals themselves: their gentle, innocent faces, restful eyes and soft fur which screams ‘stroke me’. I could skip the savagery of ‘the kill’, but I understand how for many, this is the highlight of a safari trip. At the risk of sounding jaded, I have reached a weird plateau where nothing short of a leopard up a tree with a lion clawing the bark underneath, electrifies me – and yup, I have actually seen that! So how then can I claim this as one of my all-time favourite experiences, if I seem only partially invested?

Simple. What never, ever gets old is the privilege of being there, in the bush.

As though being outdoors awakens me, I can hear, taste, see, smell and feel without any interference. It’s a type of spirituality – opened to your God, topped up with the life around you and renewed in nature. There is an energy that flows underneath that big sky in the early mornings. It affects all it touches.

That understanding reaches me in the awed whisper of the couple in the seat before me. From Brazil and first-time game viewers, I know they feel the magic, unable to raise their voices for fear of breaking the spell.

We stop for coffee and rusks, in time to watch the horizon ablaze with the reds and oranges of a new day.

“Okay. Leopard sighting.” The ranger calls, rushing to get us going. In the excitement of the moment he has dropped his pretentious Shangaan name games. (Or maybe he no longer wanted to spar with the spoilsport in row three).

Back to reality, I realise, and to the reason most people come to private game reserves – to actually see the game. What they are not so conscious of is the rest of the experience, that which touches the soul. The essence which remains, long after you have forgotten how many rhino you saw, but returns to you as a memory. Maybe a scent. Maybe a sound. A breeze at just the right temperature, brushing across your skin, and you remember…