Take a trip to South Africa’s truly wild side: this safari has no phone signal – and feels far from the crowds

The black sky blazes with brilliant purple, white and electric blue. The air is thick with the stench of wet mud and pollen. Big balls of hot rain brush against our skin and bump the open Land Rover as we weave our way through soggy dirt roads.

“Welcome to Africa,” laughs our guide Bongani, one hand on the steering wheel and a flashlight in the other. “Big cats love rain, it’s the perfect camouflage.”

An hour ago it was a bowl 35c (95f). Now the herds of zebras, nyalas, impalas, buffaloes, kudus, waterbucks and more that fell asleep in the sultry night are all looking for shelter.

When we reach the only asphalt road wide and wide, a sharp smell of oil rises from the road. Smooth tar steams in the headlights and above it the night wakes again and again in terror.

Then we come to a screeching halt.

Two baby elephants gallop up the road, quickly followed by rather angry looking parents waving their trunks at us.

“We have to keep going, the rain is bothering them,” cried Bongani.

Back in my room – a flimsy concrete structure perched on stilts on the edge of a rock embankment overlooking the Luvuvhu River – the thunder rolls outside and the anthemic hum of the crickets returns.

Yesterday I was in cool North London. Now I’m two hours away from any civilization of note, with no phone service let alone wifi. I sleep like a log.

The Buitepos is one of only two lodges in Pafuri, an area of ​​65,000 hectares of private bushland and the upper part of South Africa’s Kruger National Park.

Here we are in the very north of the country, away from the tourist crowds of the big park further south. The “Big Five in One Drive” is waiting for you down there. But what you lose in Pafuri’s abundant wildlife sightings, you gain in the most beautiful solitude.

The weather is almost tropical; and with it comes some of the richest and most diverse wildlife in the country.

Pafuri accounts for less than two per cent of the wider Krugerbos, but contains up to 80 per cent of the region’s biodiversity, including around 350 species of rare birds.

Henry’s luxury base is The Outpost, pictured, one of only two lodges in Pafuri

Red hornbills (or zazu from The Lion King), bright blue starlings, green tarsier pigeons and purple rollers whirl by. “Did you see that shadow over your head?” I ask.

“A black eagle,” said Bongani, barely looking up.

“And that alarm call?” A tropical booboo. “And the chirping in the distance?”

“It’s a zebra, Henry.” Life changes quickly here; It’s a candlelit dinner outside on the main lodge porch just after sunset and – stripped of emails, social media and binges – it’s an early bed for an even earlier start.

Suddenly I’m a ‘morning person’, jumping up at 5am to watch on the balcony as the cinematic scene unfolds in 4D: orange-pink delights splashing across misty grasslands and lush baobab trees.

“The weather is almost tropical; and with that comes some of the richest and most diverse wildlife in the country,” says Henry of the area. Above is a baby baboon in Pafuri

The Outpost offers two trips a day, one at dawn and one at dusk, with time in between to swim in the lodge’s pool or enjoy a spa treatment.

The room achieves the desired inside-outside-but-not-actually-outside mix.

The only thing that separates you from the elements is a tarp and mosquito net. But the freestanding bathtub and other hotel amenities are welcome luxuries.

Trucks loaded with freezers bring dragon fruit, venison, rainbow trout and rabbit every week. And I find it surprisingly easy to slip into the routine of coffee and muffins first, followed by breakfast, lunch, high tea and a three-course meal.

Henry sees romantic marriage proposal while visiting Lanner Gorge (pictured)

My traveling companions for the stay, British couple Simon and Sarah, visited us four years ago and returned for a 30th birthday celebration.

One day, as Simon gathers at sunset at the top of the Lanner Gorge for a gin and tonic, he gets down on one knee and asks for him.

Of course Sarah agrees (how could she not!) and we toast with champagne.

Before apartheid, Pafuri was the home of the Makulekes. A 1969 government order forcibly confiscated the land and evicted the people. But when the area regained legal ownership in 1996, the community decided not to retire, but to lease it to lodges that almost exclusively employ staff such as Bongani of Makuleke heritage.

Our urges are therefore riddled with countless lessons: that wild sage is rubbed on the skin as an insect repellent. This leopard urine smells like popcorn. That the call of blacksmith larks sounds like the sound of a hammer on metal.

And that lala palms from Zimbabwe are so called because their sap can be brewed into a very intoxicating drink (“lala” means “sleep”).

This is Bongani’s house; and ours, to enjoy them only for a short – but dazzling – time.