African Odyssey

Part of the Greater Kruger Park, one of the world's great game sanctuaries; home to a great diversity of wildlife with a large predator population. We encounter lions with their cubs and track the increasingly rare wild dog.

The dense vegetation of the Northern Sabi Sand Reserve provide the perfect cover for big game and it requires all our tracker's skills to find it. We track elephant and rhino on foot and find leopard cubs honing their skills as they move into adulthood.

Dar is a vibrant melting pot of cultures. We explore the city and camp at Mikokoni Beach, just 15 kilometres from the city yet a million miles from anywhere, before setting out on our train ride to Ifakara. This is our jumping-off point for the trip down the Kilombero River into the Selous, one of the world's largest wildlife reserves.

Babwata is a remote reserve in Namibia close to the Angolan border; a wildlife haven for the shy and reclusive lechwe, some aggressive hippo on the river Kwando and vast herds of elephants congregating around Horseshoe Lagoon. Poaching in the area was a major problem, but has now been virtually eliminated by the local community in co-operation with Susuwe and the wildlife authorities.

Fighting tiger fish, fascinating bird life and close encounters with bathing elephants, all accessed from Impalila Island at the confluence of two major rivers - the Chobe and the Zambezi - and the only place in the world where four countries meet - Namibia, Botswana, Zambia and Zimbabwe.

1700 meters wide and 100 meters high, the Victoria Falls - Mosi o Tunya, is one of the world's great natural wonders - especially when viewed from a micro light and from Livingstone Island on the edge of the gorge. We explore the Mosi o Tunya National Park on the banks of the Zambezi with great elephant sightings.

The little known Lower Zambezi National Park spreading from the Zambezi over the massive flood plain - impassable in the wet - to the escarpment. We explore the wood savanna areas of the park and have our first ever sighting of tree-climbing lions.

The Central Kalahari is a starkly beautiful and unspoilt wilderness. A semi-desert with no sign of any surface water, it supports a varied wildlife population and is a refuge for the Bushmen or Khoi-San, last of the hunter-gatherers. A fascinating people with ancient survival skills still able to exist in this wild wilderness. We walk with the Bushmen and encounter more than we bargained for - a dangerous puff adder.

A remote area of diverse terrain and vegetation set in Uganda's western Rift Valley close to the fabled Ruwenzori's and the DRC border. Broad savannah - home to the endemic Uganda Kob, tropical rain forest with colobus monkeys and hard to find chimpanzees and nearby Lake Albert where we eventually find the rare and elusive Shoebill - a worthwhile hunt.

The other side of the Zambezi Valley - the River and its vast floodplain. Pods of hippos, lone crocs, buffalo herds and elephants abound in this ideal habitat. Smaller things too, myriad birds and tiny community spiders that create masterpiece structures. Breakfast on a sandbar in the middle of the river is one of the more unusual places we've eaten.

Every year one and a half million wildebeest accompanied by vast numbers of zebra, trek north from the Serengeti in search of the lush sweet grasses of the Mara, followed by the many large predators. We fly over in the Mara in a Hot Air Balloon for a unique view of this spectacular reserve.

A return to the fabled Masai Mara. We still find the vast herds of wildebeest and zebra, but this time on foot, as they turn to head home to the Serengeti. Predator encounters between hyena and lions, a cool leopard and mating lions too engrossed to tackle the easy prey around them, the Mara offers a different aspect.

Madikwe, was the scene of one of Africa's largest game relocation programmes with over 9000 animals being moved into the Reserve. A fascinating area of wide-open spaces and great Inselbergs - volcanic mountains formed more than 4 million years ago. Wildlife is abundant and we encounter many species including Madikwe's great success story - the rare and endangered wild dog.