Why the bushveld is better in winter

Summer gets the photographs; winter gets the sightings. Between May and August the bushveld drops its leaves, the grass dies back and the waterholes shrink to a handful across a whole reserve. Everything you came to see has to come to the water, and you can actually see it when it does.

Cold mornings, warm afternoons

Dawn drives in July are genuinely cold - single digits in the Waterberg is normal. Lodges provide blankets and hot water bottles; you provide a beanie. By ten o'clock you are in shirtsleeves again.

Malaria risk drops

The low-water months are also the low-mosquito months. Much of Limpopo and the North West is malaria-free year-round, but even in the risk areas winter is the easiest time to travel with small children.

Rates soften

Outside the school holidays, winter is low season almost everywhere in the bushveld. The same lodge that is fully booked in December will often have midweek availability in June at a materially lower rate.