Remember you read about it here first: an African safari fully accessible to disabled
travellers.
In Disabled Motorist magazine a few months ago an item mentioned this imaginative new venture by a South African tour operator.
It was enough to tempt me (with my wheelchair) and a more active friend to investigate first by email and eventually to book.
The eight-day holiday turned out to be all we could have wished for. We stayed in bush tents, bungalows and traditional African roundawels all with adapted toilet facilities and ramped access. Our transport, the wayside refreshment stops and daily game viewing drives had full disabled access.
You move in an awesome world of close encounters with the kingdom of wild animals. Watching them, roaming free in the vastness of their natural surroundings, it becomes an
action-packed viewing journey. From the safety of your sturdy safari vehicle you never know which to grab first – the camera or binoculars. Some creatures, however, such as the enormous Nile crocodiles, are better seen at a distance, deceptively resembling an abandoned log on some sandy river bank. Closer inspection of the object reveals an inert, watchful predator looking for all the world like the prehistoric survivors they are.
Tours travel in the care of knowledgeable Alfie Smith, who has been a safari tour guide and operator for many years throughout Africa. Now, believing that disabled people should have the choice of sharing equal enjoyments of this adventure holiday, he has set up Epic-Enabled in South Africa – the country offering the best infrastructure with facilities that are important to us. The vehicles he drives are adapted for wheelchair access.
Alfie meets arrivals flying into Johannesburg. With a time difference of only one or two hours (summer or winter schedule) we arrived alert enough, even after an 11-hour flight, to plunge into prospects ahead.
The drive into Kruger National Park begins against the sweeping backdrop of the High Veldt. An inevitable ribbon of shanty shacks which fringe the edges of most big cities softens to wide horizons of terracotta earth and sunflower crops. Here and there dark scars of opencast mining are reminders of the industry which plays some part in economics and livelihood.
The less harsh green undulations of the Low Veldt come next, introducing you to seemingly endless boundaries of the Kruger National Park. Road signs on river bends change incongruously to “Hippopotamus crossing”.
Even before you settle into your first-night bush stop you might find yourself, as we did, aiming your camera at spotted hyaena, formidable looking rhino, elephants, warthog, baboon, impala, elegant giraffes…
On early morning and late afternoon drives into the surrounding bush we came to accept that there is an element of dice about game viewing. You might drive slowly for a couple
of hours and see nothing, or your driver can learn of a cheetah sighting and arrive at the spot to find so many vehicles already there ahead of you that you have no chance of getting close enough for just a glimpse of the shy beauty.
Equally, with no other vehicle in sight on the dirt road, you may find yourself halted and quietly watching as many as 50 elephants and their babies in single file, or a vast herd of zebra moving leisurely across your path and disappearing into the bush opposite; leaving only silence and a feeling that you have been part of the mystery of wilderness.
One afternoon we rounded a bend and a car with four occupants was swiftly backing towards us. Alert Alfie, with splitsecond thinking, slammed our vehicle into reverse and, along with the car, we also set off zigzagging backwards at a furious pace. Coming towards us in the road was a VERY crosselephant in musk – ears wide, dribbling constantly. He wasn't charging but steadily advancing at a smart pace. He was on an amorous quest and cars in his path were certainly not what he was hoping to find.
Did Jumbo see us as a threat, I asked Alfie afterwards? No way, apparently; our vehicle was just a nuisance to him. If we had not backed off smartly one swipe of his trunk could have caused us an awful lot of damage.
I have been in South Africa before, but in apartheid years. Much is unrecognisably buoyant now. The flow of international investment increases in an atmosphere of growing
confidence. So many lively schoolchildren, in their smart uniforms, are part of mixed groups you meet exploring in museums, studying their history. Hearteningly, everyone you speak to, black or white, has nothing but unstinting admiration for Nelson Mandela.
It came as a surprise to me to learn that Nelson Mandela is an excellent artist. In art galleries limited editions of his paintings, many of them poignant views across the magnificent seascapes towards Cape Town seen from behind his prison bars on Robben Island, fetch thousands of South African Rand.
His originals are earmarked for the national art gallery. A sightseeing day in Johannesburg, included in the Epic- Enabled tour, introduced the contrasts of South Africa's commercial centre with expensive fashionable suburbia and the vast spread of historic Soweto. Soweto, a major suburb in its own right, has its churches, shopping centres, and residential roads where homes range from the simplicity of the original small permanent single storey houses to the sophistication of walled and gated classy dwellings of local doctors, lawyers and Soweto's VIP residents such as Winnie Mandela.
The cost of the eight-day safari is £650 including game drives, accommodation, breakfast and barbecue bush suppers and an absorbing tour of historic Johannesburg. Nothing
is stinted. This is a new, still relatively unknown operation, sometimes booked by a small group from some disabled organisation. Epic-Enabled can take up to six wheelchairs per
tour. Well-run in my experience, I found nothing to beat it on a scale of fair value pricing and willing assistance.
From a wide choice of international airlines you make your own flight arrangements leaving you free to search out any advantage fares (although these usually mean changing in a continental airport). With my wheelchair and our luggage my companion and I decided to book a direct UK-Johannesburg flight at around £600.
Safari holidays in South Africa mean that you will see most of the Big Five game animals – only leopards eluded us. Perhaps if we had been there in September-October when grasses are lowest and the animals at their most visible… But whatever time of year, every new day starts with the adventure of wondering what wonderful animals you will encounter next. For more details visit www.epic-enabled.com