Into the wild: the Ford Everest SUV goes off-road in South Africa

TRAVEL TODAY IS such a marketed commodity. For something that is sold to us as an escape, a reset, a diversion from the norm, there is pressure galore to do and see everything. We pack our bags, telling ourselves we’re going to soak up every moment. And yet, so often, our schedules become packed with must-sees, -eats and -dos. The needle rises even higher should you consult the shiny FOMO-saturated feeds of Instagram or TikTok as part of your planning. Unless you’re one of those rare types who schedule periods of reflection, trying to make time to be present can add to the mental load.

This year, via algorithms, metropolis-centric travel that celebrates human achievement and history has dominated our feeds. Japan, Paris, Seoul and Rome – all places vacationers return to again and again – have been among the most pinned, saved and shared for 2024. Yet, at the same time, the desire for adventure and escape has never been greater – likewise our desire to live in the moment. There are many ancient places around the world that force you to pay attention. The Australian outback is one. The raw wilderness of northeastern South Africa, from where I’m writing this piece, is another. Out here, the daily grind is survival. You’re just another link on the food chain, with reminders of one’s mortal, human feebleness at every turn.

The concept of a safari carries with it an expectation of venturing beyond the comfort zone, of experiencing something memorable that the megacities can’t offer. True, it’s as much of a travel-marketing goldmine as anywhere else. But as modern life gets more frenetic, the lure of dusty, wild trails has never been stronger. Couple that with being absorbed behind the wheel on a road trip and you’ve got an antidote to the grip of the algorithm. Or so I wanted to confirm. My adventure starts at Kapama Private Game Reserve, a wilderness park and resort in Hoedspruit reachable by charter flight and not far from the famous Kruger National Park.

It’s a gated property that stretches 13,000 hectares – or 14 Sydney Kingsford Smith Airports – across and into the distance. Our chariot is the Ford Everest SUV, which soon proves to be an excellent choice. That shouldn’t come as a surprise: these tough but creature comfort-stacked vehicles are, like the Ford Ranger, co-developed in Australia, so in this wild, rugged habitat, the Everest is right at home. The difference on the roads out here is that the pace is much slower. Instead of suicidal marsupials jumping out at you, it’s zebras wandering out from the bushes to spark lame jokes about striped crossings and giraffes leaning over the side of the road to munch on the branches of acacia trees.

While conservation is a priority in these parts, poaching has spiked alarmingly over the past few years. South Africa is home to more than 80 per cent of the world’s rhinoceros population, and last year, 499 of them were hunted and killed, an increase of 51 from the previous year. Some parks go to great lengths to protect the endangered beasts; Kapama employs intimidating, armed anti-poacher guards to patrol its dusty trails and high border fences. The safari experience is rooted in sightings of the ‘Big Five’ – lion, leopard, rhinoceros, elephant and African buffalo – animals given the ‘Big’ title owing to their dangerousness and value to poachers.

Kapama’s River Lodge – our digs – is set amongst the wilderness and, pleasingly, there’s not a single taxidermic trophy alluding to the land’s colonial and hunting past to be seen. At dawn, ahead of our first outing, mischievous monkeys bounce around in the trees near our breakfast buffet, the higher-placed ones working in groups to distract the tourists while their friends below try in vain to steal from the pastry cart.

The spa overlooks a small body of water, from which hippos pop up to flap their ears; a sign by the pool warns visitors not to step off the deck. I find myself coming to the spa in the early mornings, hoping to catch a glimpse of something – though I’m not quite sure what. A hippo attack? An elephant grazing? Some kind of nature-is-metal event? I find humour in the thought of relaxing here by the pool after a yoga class or traditional African Calabash massage, only to be confronted by the brutality of the wild.

On the afternoon of our arrival, we hit the road in our Everests and venture out in convoy into the park. It’s the dry season – the rains aren’t due until November – so the terrain is brown, dusty and highly flammable. Many of the riverbeds and surrounding paths have become deep and fine sandy areas, which call for some off-roading in the SUV’s sand mode in full send to avoid getting bogged. Our speed is kept to around 40km/h, and from the Everest we see signs of animals everywhere: there is evidence of elephants in the form of fallen trees and uprooted bushes, which make for nesting areas for smaller animals; circling vultures lead us to a recent giraffe kill; and a resting lion is camouflaged in the open savannah.

The presence of little grey birds with red beaks called oxpeckers, which eat the parasites off the backs of various animals, signifies there are giraffes, buffaloes and different types of antelopes and zebras nearby, all of which we eventually see in abundance. Funnily enough, the only encounter that makes our guide nervous involves a pair of male African buffalos, which are notoriously unpredictable.

Our field guide tells us to listen out for frantic bird calls indicating predators nearby, adding that if you smell ‘popcorn’, it means a leopard has left its scent. By far the most moving encounter happens when I pull up alongside one of the many serene and majestic giraffes and make eye contact. Locked in this deep stare between human and long-lashed giant, my throat tightens, tears well in my eyes and I am overcome with a mix of guilt, grief, beauty, humility and awe.

The next morning, we hit the road to head out of the park and into the jungle, to see what the Everest is capable of. Our destination is Mariepskop, which towers over the Blyde River Canyon, the world’s largest green canyon, and is part of the Drakensberg mountain range. Mariepskop Pass is a steep mountain route that stretches almost 14 kilometres and climbs 1100 metres to a summit 1942 metres above sea level. Uneven and often gravelly, the road makes nearly 100 twists and turns but leads to a peak that, on a good day, offers one of South Africa’s most majestic views, with vistas out to the Indian Ocean. Alas, we get a day that is misty, windy and wet, and when I make the mistake of opening a window, a chill air invades the cabin, prompting all seat- and steering-wheel heaters to be set to full.

Taking the route less travelled up and back down the pass, our Everests very much prove their worth beyond the school run, crossing rivers, hopping rocks and skimming over orange mud without missing a beat. Doing the hard work is our Everest Platinum’s (the top-shelf variant) 184kW/600Nm 3.0L V6 turbo diesel engine, which has been engineered to stay cool and smooth yet feels torque-y and hustle-y as hell. Meanwhile, the Platinum’s luxurious interior, tough off-road modes and wide range of camera systems – including a bird’s eye 360o view and 180o front-and-rear split view, as well as an ‘off-road’ view for tricky wheel-placement scenarios and another designed for trailers – takes the anxiety out of many a tricky situation.

For a sub-$90k SUV, the Platinum truly boasts an impressive stack of kit – and it’s crazy capable as we just found out. In stark contrast to inside the park, the scenes out here in the mountains are green and busy with life. We drive past locals mass-burning Lantana weeds, road signs covered by moss and vines and spooky, decrepit remnants of former government and military buildings. At one point, we stop to take photos, only to stir up a huge family of baboons, who bark at us like rabid dogs while raiding rubbish bins. Even as part of civilisation of sorts, the animals remind us of their presence and power.

Now, at the risk of jumping around in my story, I should point out that, through all this sensory immersion, rock-hopping, giraffe tears and terrifying baboon encounters, it hasn’t yet hit me what it means to be present. And it isn’t until an hour or so into a rhino chase the next morning that it does.

At dawn, the Kapama guides take us out for one last jaunt into the wild – this time in their open-top safari vehicles, away from the comfort of our Everests. We find ourselves hurtling along the park’s roads, kicking up the fine, golden dust at every turn in pursuit of a horned beast we can’t yet see.

Our tracker, perched on a chair fixed to the front bonnet, points in various directions, leading us through the paths between the dry grassland. Every few hundred metres, we stop and he bends down to peer at tracks or check the freshness of the piles of rhino scat. Then, with a wave, we’re off again, bouncing down another path.

While this is happening, my eyes are wide, adrenaline is surging and I feel giddy in anticipation of catching up with the behemoth. It is somewhere between being told a rhino is nearby, frantically ducking my head to avoid being taken out by a Karroo thorn tree’s 10cm-long spikes, watching vultures pick apart two giraffe carcasses and stopping to witness elephants tussling when a profound realisation sweeps over me: these past few days, I have been completely and utterly present.

The rhino eludes us. But the thrill of the chase is more than enough. After one last spin in our Everests – into the dirt and back out to the airfield where we’ll be taking off for home – the stickiness of what it feels like to be alive in the here and now lingers.

Of course, the argument for choosing roads less travelled over the excessively ’grammed, all-too-familiar surroundings of the metropolis is part and parcel of safari marketing. But at least the difference is real. And unlike my current social-media travel feed, a journey into the wild lives up to every expectation.