This tour will give you an excellent idea of the different types of animals you?re likely to see in the different parts of the country. If you have the time it is always a good idea to add an extra day in each reserve or national park.

Arrive Johannesburg, fly to Upington.

Drive to Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park, settle in. Do an evening game drive. In this park, you may black-maned Kalahari lions, and the beautiful, elegant gemsbok, or oryx, which is abundant here. You will also see lots of springbok.

Visit Cape Point in the Cape Peninsula National Park. Here you may see baboons, ostriches, zebras, eland, bontebok and springbok. You can also stop off at Boulders Beach to see the African penguins. (You?ll almost certainly want to spend a bit of time in this lovely city visiting Table Mountain, Robben Island, or the wine routes.)

Fly to Port Elizabeth and transfer to Addo. Do an escorted night drive. Instead of flying, you could drive to Addo, stopping at the De Hoop Nature Reserve or the Bontebok National Park, both near Swellendam. If it is whale season, a stop at De Hoop is very worthwhile.

. Either do a self-drive through the park, or join an escorted trip on an open safari vehicle. For the adventurous, you can do an escorted walk or a horse ride. Here you will notice that the game is getting to be a little more ?classic?. Huge herds of elephants, are a hallmark of the reserve, and you are quite likely to see buffaloes and black rhinos. Some small but fascinating animals include the inquisitive suricate, which can be seen here in abundance, as the sentries guard their communities, and the endemic flightless dung beetle. It is worth taking the trouble to drive the approximately 150km (less than 100 miles) to the Mountain Zebra National Park, where you should see one or two of the small herds of these lovely animals. Look at them closely, noting the dewlap and the absence of shadow stripes ? they are truly black and white, with no lighter shades, and their stripes go all the way down their legs.

Fly from Port Elizabeth to Durban. Drive to Hluhluwe-Imfolozi National Park. As you enter this park, you will realise you are in a totally different environment. Instead of the low, aromatic, flowering shrubs of the Cape Peninsula National Park, the thick bush of Addo, and the arid Mountain Zebra National Park, you will see areas of relatively open woodland with large tracts of grass. Typically African thorn trees make their appearance and, for the first time, you?ll see giraffe. Note the zebras ? these are Burchell?s zebras, or plains zebras. Many have shadow stripes, and their stripes extend all around their bellies. They lack the dewlap, of the mountain zebras. Their hooves are also very different, but you probably won?t get a chance to examine that. White and black rhinos are in abundance, elephants and buffalo roam the park and there are lions a-plenty. Here you will see impala, but no springbok.

Explore Hluhluwe-Umfolozi. You will notice that the black rhino are usually found in or near thick bush and the white rhinos are most often seen grazing on the open plains.

Drive to Richards Bay, fly to Johannesburg, and then to the Kruger National Park. Settle in and do an escorted night drive. (Instead of flying to Johannesburg, you could drive via the Golden Gate National Park, where you could see some high altitude game such as eland,which are pretty ubiquitous, and black wildebeest, which are only seen in the Karoo and montane grassland. In Kruger, for example, you?ll see mostly gnus, or blue wildebeest, which are bigger and totally different.)

Explore Kruger National Park, heading further north, where you will see baobab trees. You should see lots of lions, and perhaps wild dogs, which are rare and endangered. On the night drive, you may see leopard and, in the daytime, you have an excellent chance of seeing an elegant, sleek cheetah in the more open areas. You will see hundred of beautiful, delicate impala, but no springbok.

Fly back to Johannesburg