Why Do People Keep Coming Back to Kruger? What 14 Kruger Safaris Taught Adele and John

Not what they'd seen, but what they'd learned after nearly two decades of returning to the same place.

Their answers challenged several of my assumptions, and reminded me that some of the best safari advice comes from people who never expected one trip to turn into fourteen.

I began with a simple question.

What made you want to come back?

Adele didn't hesitate.

It wasn't a lion. It wasn't a leopard. It wasn't even one of the Big Five.

It was the very last sighting of their safari.

As they crossed the bridge near Paul Kruger Gate on their way home, a hippo and her calf climbed out of the water onto a tiny sandbank, stood quietly for a few moments, then slipped back beneath the surface.

Adele laughed as she remembered turning to Simon.

After travelling halfway around the world in search of Africa's iconic wildlife, the moment that captured the first piece of Adele's heart wasn't dramatic or rare.

It was unexpected, unhurried and impossible to plan.

The conversation naturally moved on to first-time safari-goers.

If Adele and John could give one piece of advice to someone planning their first safari, what would it be?

Adele didn't hesitate.

Before their first safari, they had arrived with the same goal as many first-time visitors.

See the Big Five. Tick off the famous animals. Go home with the photographs.

It didn't take long for that to change.

As the days passed, they found themselves paying less attention to the list and more attention to the small moments between the headline sightings.

An elephant family melting into one another around a shrinking waterhole. 

A dung beetle rolling its precious cargo across the road. 

A herd of impala gradually relaxing after sensing a predator nearby.

They still hoped to see everything. But they stopped measuring the success of a safari by what they managed to tick off.

Listening to them, I realised that this wasn't advice about lowering your expectations.

It was about widening them.

Go to Kruger hoping to see the Big Five by all means. Just don't be surprised if the memory that stays with you is something you never thought to put on your list.

One of the questions I was most curious about was whether Kruger ever starts to feel familiar.

After fourteen safaris, surely you know what's around the next corner?

John smiled.

That may sound like an odd thing to say.

After all, the roads don't move. The camps stay where they are. The gates are exactly where they were last year.

But that's not what John meant.

Every safari unfolds differently.

A pride of lions sleeping beneath a marula tree one morning may have moved twenty kilometres away by the next.

The quiet waterhole that produced nothing yesterday may suddenly become the centre of the bush as elephants, zebra, buffalo and giraffe arrive one after another.

A leopard may spend three days hidden in thick riverine vegetation before deciding, for reasons known only to leopards, that today is the day to walk down the middle of the road.

As John explained, they know where they're staying. They know what time they'll leave camp. They know roughly where they're going.

That uncertainty, he told me, is part of the attraction.

It's also why they never tire of returning.

The setting may be familiar, but the story is always new.

It's the whole point.

Nothing repeats itself. Even when the route does.

Every sunrise reveals a new chapter. Every game drive begins with possibility.

As Adele put it, every morning is a blank page waiting to be filled.

After our conversation, Adele sent me an email.

There was one point, she said, that she and John didn't feel they'd expressed strongly enough.

She went on to explain why.

Over the years, they've been on safaris with other guides, including in Pilanesberg. Some were perfectly competent. But, as Adele put it, guiding was their job.

With Simon, she felt something different.

That passion was one of the strongest impressions they took home from their very first safari, and it has shaped every one since.

In fact, Adele admitted that Simon became the non-negotiable part of planning Safari Number Two through to Safari Number Fourteen.

Not because he could guarantee a leopard or somehow produce a hippo on cue, but because he shared their excitement.

He noticed things. He explained things. He celebrated the small moments as much as the spectacular ones.

When people choose a safari, they often spend hours comparing destinations, lodges and itineraries. Very few spend the same amount of time thinking about the guide they'll spend every day with.

Yet that's the person who helps turn a sighting into a story.

It's also worth saying that Adele and John were quick to add that they would be just as happy travelling with Wild Wings guides Nicky or Rufus. Over the years, the relationship has grown beyond simply returning to one particular guide.

As Adele wrote, "there is now the friendship element."

Perhaps that's another thing fourteen safaris teaches you.

The wildlife brings you to Africa.

The people often bring you back.

Towards the end of our conversation, I realised something else had changed over fourteen safaris.

It wasn't just the way Adele and John looked at Kruger. It was the relationship they had with it. They no longer talked about sightings as isolated moments. They talked about them as chapters in an unfolding story.

One animal in particular summed that up.

Casper.

The famous white lion of Kruger.

Most visitors dream of seeing him. Adele and John eventually did, but not before years of near misses and distant glimpses.

"We had glimpses when he was younger," Adele told me, "but they were really distant."

Then came another safari. Another chance. Another disappointment. Casper had been seen on a night drive, but not by them.

Finally, on their twelfth safari, everything came together.

They spent half an hour with him. It was worth every missed opportunity that had come before.

She remembered it was 2016. She remembered the drought. She remembered the bush stripped almost bare. And she remembered taking a photograph of Casper where, somehow, his face ended up hidden behind what she laughed was "the one green leaf in the whole of Kruger."

That made me smile.

Not because the photograph was imperfect. Because that's what she'd remembered. Not simply seeing Casper.

The year. The drought. The anticipation. The missed sightings that came before. The absurdity of one perfectly placed leaf.

It wasn't just a lion anymore. It had become part of a story she'd been following for years. 

Safari, John explained, is a little like snorkelling.

The first time you put your face beneath the surface, you discover an entire world that was there all along. You just couldn't see it before.

The same thing had happened to them in Kruger. The park hadn't changed. They had.

With every visit, they weren't finding a different Kruger. They were noticing more of the one they'd been visiting all along.

Perhaps that's what fourteen safaris really gives you.

Not more sightings.

A longer memory.

Before we finished, I asked Adele and John one final question.

What would you say to someone planning their very first safari?

Neither of them talked about cameras.

Or binoculars.

Or ticking off the Big Five.

Instead, they came back to the same idea that had quietly surfaced throughout our conversation.

Come with an open mind.

The list you arrive with may not be the memory you take home.

Leave room to be surprised.

Leave room for the unexpected.

Because the moment that stays with you might not be the one you travelled halfway around the world expecting to see.

It might be two hippos appearing just as you're leaving the park.

Or an elephant quietly feeding while everyone else is searching for lions.

Or a guide who stops the vehicle because he's noticed something you would have driven straight past.

After fourteen safaris, Adele and John still don't know what they'll find each morning.

That's one of the reasons they keep coming back.

As John put it earlier in our conversation, "Once you're in the park, you have no idea what's going to happen."

I suspect most safari lovers would agree that's exactly as it should be.

As we wrapped up our conversation, we laughed about the one animal that has continued to elude Adele and John through thirteen safaris.

The pangolin.

It's still at the top of their wish list.

Here's hoping Safari Number Fourteen is the one that finally changes that.

I've already asked Simon if he can press the right button.