It took us eight hours to reach them, trekking through jungle that often needed to be hacked back with a machete. Just when I had given up hope, we came upon the group of mountain gorillas in a clearing, some snoozing in the sunshine, some chewing leaves, others picking at their fur nonchalantly. Adults knuckle-walked while babies frolicked at their feet.

Only a few yards separated man from beast. There wasn’t much distance in genetics either: gorillas share almost 98 per cent of human genetic make-up. Our guides, who grunted cough-like hellos to assure the animals we were friends rather than foes, bore nothing but machetes to protect us had these magnificent beasts decided to turn nasty. And they are large – I couldn’t believe the size of the head belonging to the silverback, the adult mature male marked by his silvery coat.

Though I made this trip from what was then Zaire some 20 years ago, and though I don’t have any photos (my films were stolen on the flight home) those images of the fleeting hour I spent with the gorillas will last me a lifetime.

It was rough, it was raw, and it was wild.

It was easy to see what had captivated the primatologist Dian Fossey, who lived and died in the Parc National des Volcans, home to half the world’s 700 remaining mountain gorillas. They have faced the devastation wreaked by war, attacks from guerrillas of another kind, and deforestation. They have been poached for their babies, their meat, and even their hands as ashtrays. No wonder they are now listed by the World Conservation Union as critically endangered.

Tourism in small, controlled groups helps to protect these magnificent creatures: the £295 park fee per person goes towards paying for wardens, while locals realise that money trickles into the local economy if the gorillas are kept alive.

The privilege of watching these primates beats any other animal magic I’ve experienced, including seeing fairy penguins pour out of the water off Australia’s Phillip Island, and the sight of hundreds of bright red lights – caiman eyes – watching me one South American night.

It wasn’t too easy, like many safaris, where animals are handed to you on a plate, a sort of conveyor belt to notch up the big five. Having spotted a pride of lions on one Kenyan safari, within minutes we were surrounded by other four-wheel-drives bearing camera-snapping tourists, all summoned by walkie talkie. We might as well have been at Longleat Safari Park.

Tiger spotting in Rajasthan a few years ago was fun. But the tigers in Ranthambore National Park are so used to humans that they walked right along in front of our vehicle for maybe 20 minutes: ideal for the perfect picture, but not for that sense of spying them in their natural habitat.

Don’t get me wrong, it was a wonderful experience. But it was just a little bit too accessible. For me, wildlife needs to be just that – a bit feral. Not so wild, though, that you risk getting your nose bitten off by a hyena, as a friend of mine did when camping in Uganda, but that is another story altogether.