On their most recent adventure, they spent a month in South Africa touring the country’s wildlife parks. The following report and photos provide a snapshot of their experience.

A South African safari in April and May this year was very rewarding for wildlife viewing.

We have been to Africa many times and we do our own thing at our own pace. We fly to major towns and pick up a hire car to drive around.

We visited four national parks in our 31-day trip, starting in the Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park, which straddles the border of South Africa and Botswana.

We stayed two nights at the Twee Rivieren Rest Camp and four nights out in the desert at !Xaus Lodge.

Getting to !Xaus Lodge involved a 2½-hour drive over red sand dunes. The drive was well worth it as the wildflowers were in bloom and the scenery was spectacular.

The lodge is owned by Khomani San (Bushmen) and the Mier Communities. !Xaus means heart in the Nama language.

Next we visited the Hluhluwe/iMfolozi Reserves in KwaZulu Natal on South Africa's east coast, 250 kilometres north of Durban, where we stayed in the Hill Top Lodge.

Hluhluwe/iMfolozi is known for its rhino and we saw about 50 during our stay, as well as lions, elephants and antelopes and many beautifully coloured birds.

The next destination on our safari was Madikwe Game Reserve, which is on the border with Botswana and is one of the less well-known parks in South Africa but regarded as one of the country's best conservation areas.

At Madikwe we stayed at the Bush House Lodge where a real treat was an underground hide that looks out into the park and over a waterhole. The number of animals that visited day and night was unbelievable. There was no need to look elsewhere, but we did do a number of game drives morning and afternoon.

The last park on our tour was our favourite, Kruger National Park in the north-east of the country along the border with Mozambique, about 380 kilometres east of Pretoria. Here we spent 11 nights staying at four rest camps: Lower Sabi, Letaba, Satara and Skukuza.

This is the park to go to see all the "Big Five" (lion, elephant, buffalo, leopard and rhino) as well as the "Little Five" (lionant, elephant shrew, buffalo weaver, leopard tortoise and rhino beetle).

The bush changes as you drive north. Kruger is 400km plus from end to end and about 80km wide at its widest. Letaba is about half way and is on the Letaba River and deep in Mopane forest.

One of many highlights of our visit was watching a mother cheetah and her four cubs walking through the bush for a few kilometres to a waterhole for a drink. We watched this unfold for 45 minutes and were overwhelmed by the antics of mum and her offspring.

We had one hiccup on our journey; Melissa fell and broke her right arm 17 days into our trip but would not come home until we finished. A paramedic put it in a sling and that is where it stayed until she arrived home and went to the doctor, who said to keep it in the sling for four or five more weeks. She is now having physio and doing well.