Nelson arrives at 9.30, as promised. He works as a tour guide for Calabash, a local charity I’ve been in touch with, who are investing in education within townships, assisting children and empowering communities. They also provide tours of the surrounding areas for tourists, in particular the Addo Elephant Park, with proceeds going back into local fundraising, and that is where we’re going today.

Nelson is charming, kind and knowledgeable, full of pride for his hometown and a fount of information about life in the townships, where he and his family live. As we drive through downtown Port Elizabeth, a city of 1.8 million people and South Africa’s fifth largest urban congregation, he tells us it’s mainly inhabited by the Xhosa tribe but was once a very British city. However the vast majority of Brits left in 1948 when the first apartheid government came to power. 

The ANC soon rose to prominence here and much of the movement towards equality first sprung from Port Elizabeth, which became the first fully democratic city in South Africa and is often referred to as The Friendly City, boasting an impressive statue of Nelson Mandela in a small park overlooking the bay. Yet the divide between black and white is stark with beautiful white suburbs sitting in stark contrast to the vast black townships just across the road, and downtown Main Street appearing somewhat more poverty stricken than its Cape Town counterpart.

 As we drive out of the city we pass huge industrial factories and massive car plants, heavy industry providing the vast majority of jobs in the area. Nelson discusses life in the factories, local and national politics, the huge Chinese investments that are happening and the worries that causes for the future of Africa and how the education system in the country is no longer fit for purpose. It’s sobering and fascinating to hear.

After an hour we arrive at Addo Elephant Park, 1640sq kms of protected land, run by the South African government as a national park, in contrast to many of the private game parks in the Eastern Cape which are focussed purely on making money rather than the conservation and protection of wild animals. Sadly, the extinction rate is accelerating every year.

Our safari starts once we complete the paperwork at the southern Camp Matyholweni entrance, but it’s a very different experience to the safari’s we’ve done in Kenya and Tanzania. The landscape is thick with vegetation making animal spotting incredibly difficult and there’s a distinct lack of large mammals to see.

Over the course of five hours, binoculars clasped to our eyes, we spot a solitary ibis, an ostrich, a distant group of red hartebeest, a few zebra, a jackal buzzard, occasional kudu deer, one water buffalo, various warthogs, some jackals, a blue crane and two tortoises in the road – one of which is flipped onto its back while its po0r mate is valiantly but fruitlessly trying to tip it back over. Unable to leave our vehicle to assist, we have a spark of inspiration and extend our selfie stick to its full length. Nelson reaches it out of the window and successfully returns the tortoise to its correct posture, saving it from a slow death by starvation. Our good deed for the day is done!

But of course Addo Elephant Park is so named because it is home to herds of elephants, which we are far more successful in spotting. In fact a group of ten or so walk in a slow, deliberate path right in front of our car, and various other single elephants or small groups are dotted around various waterholes, or trudging through the bush. Yet nothing prepares us for the sight we encounter at the largest watering hole we stop at.

Cars, jeeps and minibuses have all congregated around the same spot as in front of us are up to 100 elephants wallowing in mud, bathing in the water, moving together or separately in family groups, standing sedately in big dusty congregations, occasionally pushing and jostling with each other and at times loudly trumpeting their displeasure at their fellows. It’s quite spectacular – a huge mass of magnificent creatures all in one place – and we sit for almost half an hour just watching them, fascinated by their interaction and slightly nervous as a few of them start to approach the cars.

Eventually we move on, hoping to see other inhabitants of the park, but the big cats are hiding in farthest corners and soon our time is up and we need to head back to Port Elizabeth, driving past the biggest township of them all – Motherwell – as we approach the city, feeling blessed as we take our leave of Nelson and re-enter the luxurious splendour of the Hacklewood Country House, knowing he is heading back to the townships.

That evening we pack our bags as our adventure is almost at an end, but before we depart we have one more night in Port Elizabeth and have decided to see a little more of what it has to offer. The staff at Hacklewood have arranged a driver, Baxter, to transport us down to the beachfront where they have a fine-dining sister restaurant called Ginger.

It’s quite a cloudy, windy evening and our hope that we would watch the sun set into the sea while we eat our dinner goes sadly unfulfilled. However we take a brief stroll along the pier and wander around the resort-like environs of the Boardwalk Hotel next door to Ginger, before tucking into a very pleasant meal and a couple of cocktails before Baxter collects us once more and returns us to the Hacklewood.

Next morning we have an alfresco breakfast on the verandah, surprised to find another couple as guests, and then relax briefly by the pool before one final journey in our hire car deposits us at Port Elizabeth’s very small airport for our return flight to Johannesburg. With huge storm clouds sitting above Jo-burg our descent is hair-raising in the extreme with some of the worst turbulence either of us have ever experienced.

It’s genuinely terrifying and we are both hugely relieved to check into the airport’s Intercontinental Hotel and watch the lashing rain from the safety of the spa pool we indulge in ahead of our super-early flight back to London the following day.

 South Africa has been a blast – an incredible mix of adventure and luxury, spectacular scenery and gastronomic indulgence, wonderful people and exciting experiences, and glorious, beautiful sunshine. One day we shall return!