I do like places that come with some history and a story. And Londolozi, one of South Africa’s best-loved safari destinations, has both in spades. Now that posh designer lodges are almost standard fare in safari-land, it is worth looking back to its early beginnings and reminding ourselves that not so long ago those who wanted to see wildlife in all its beauty and awesome savagery had to do it the simple way.

In 1926, when Charles Varty and his friend Frank Unger heard by chance of “a disease-ridden, back-of-beyond” piece of Africa, they bought it sight unseen. It was a farm called Sparta and they paid £1,236.11.5d for 4,000ha (10,000 acres) of untamed bush, rich in roan and sable antelope, eland, waterbuck, wildebeest, lion and, of course, leopard (elephant were to come later). It was bought as a place where they could escape from city pressures and do their favourite things – living wild, walking in the bush and hunting. Long-drop loos and simple tents surrounded by a thornbush boma to give some protection from the roaming lions were their only facilities for years. Right up until the late 1960s it was their private domain, an Arcadian paradise, where generations of Vartys learnt to hunt and fish, to track and observe the natural world.

But by the 1960s the world was changing – hunting was depleting the game, those who were close to the land saw that conservation had to be the way forward. By the time 18-year-old John Varty and his 15-year-old brother David inherited Sparta after their father’s sudden death it was clear that turning it into a reserve for paying guests was the only way to go. It’s hard to imagine now but there were few safari lodges at the time (Mala Mala was the first of the family-owned reserves to open for paying guests) and the notion that the wildlife experience might one day require private butlers, chandeliers, sunken baths and spas was then as undreamt of as mobile phones and iPods.

The Vartys built on rooms, added flushing loos and proper bathrooms and by the early 1980s when my husband and I first visited, it had become, with Mala Mala, one of two well-known South African luxury lodges. It was a serious treat, the cherry on the top of five days travelling through the Kruger National Park staying in perfectly nice but slightly spartan government lodges. We thought we were being extravagant forking out what must have been something like £30 a night. I still remember the rooms overlooking the Sand River, the food (way ahead of its time), the views and the wildlife – Big Black, a black-maned lion that had come in from Kruger Park and who terrified the life out of us by rising out of the bushes a metre away from the Land Rover and, above all, the leopards. Leopards are what Londolozi is famous for. All through the years Londolozi trackers, mostly the sons and now the grandsons of Shangaan hunter-gatherers who know the land as intimately as you and I know our home town, have nurtured a relationship with leopards so that they are unusually unafraid of four-wheel drives or man. Visitors to the Sabi Sand area and Londolozi, in particular, get the sort of lingering sightings that are almost nonexistent anywhere else in Africa. In Londolozi we followed a mother and her teenage cub for half an hour or more. That is one of the joys of these private reserves – the rangers can go where the animals are and those with a taste for it can go walking with an armed guard.

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The excitement at Londolozi at the moment – and the reason for another visit – is that the Varty family have taken it back into the family fold, bringing on board the next generation, Bronwyn and Boyd, David and Shan’s children. For 12 years, while David Varty ran CC Africa, a visionary eco-tourism company, now one of the largest in Africa, it made sense for Londolozi to be within the CC Africa portfolio. However, since his own connection with the company has now ended it seemed time to make Londolozi a family-run operation once again. Almost £1 million has been spent giving the five camps – Tree Camp, Varty Camp, Pioneer Camp, Founders Camp and the plushest of all, the three Granite Suites – a fitting makeover. The work was completed last year.

If you’re a family, Varty Camp is the (slightly less expensive) place to stay but, as Shan Varty is keen to point out, what you get at Londolozi is more than swanky bathrooms and fancy lotions. You get history, a family and a story along with the fresh, gutsy food and the daily game drives. Take Elmon, my tracker when I stayed there. He has been with Londolzi for 36 years, his father worked there before him, his brother and his son are there. They know every leopard, which leopard was its father and its mother, what their fates were, where they go and how many cubs they have. They’ve watched many prides of lion all through the years and can tell you all their stories. When we stayed there was a big drama on the lion front with a battle royal waging between the existing pride and some predatory incomers. “The six male lions of the Sparta pride,” Elmon tells us, “that grew up here and moved west are now moving back in and creating chaos. Already they’ve killed four cubs and killed and eaten their father. We’re all waiting to see what happens next.”

The Vartys have other big plans. I sense that they feel the traditional safari model is played out – or at any event is being done in splendid style elsewhere. They’re looking for something new. In looking to redefine the safari experience they seem to be taking it down a more spiritual, metaphysical path. Already they offer yoga and massage, a spa and soon “extreme tracking” will be on the menu. This, according to Alex van den Heerden, the Land Manager, will mean “using tracking as a medium to connect people to the earth and as a part of wilderness awareness”. They’re consulting Dr Ian MacCallum, for instance, a psychiatrist who is much inspired by wilderness and its healing properties. He believes that a sense of who we are is linked with a deep historical memory of landscape and that some low-grade depression is a form of “homesickness” for these landscapes. He believes that modern man needs these “journeys to landscapes which feed the soul”. This is a notion that is already in the ether.

There are many who believe that wild areas have more to offer than just the adrenalin charge of hunting down the “big five”, and Londolozi wants to be in the forefront of recreating this sense of wonder in the wilderness. But if it is the “big five” you’re after the Sabi Sand area, in the heart of which lies Londolozi, has to be one of the most game-rich areas in the world. Its lands are contiguous with the Kruger National Park and is part of the Great Limpopo Transfrontier Park, so game roams freely across some six million acres. Few go home without seeing leopards, while lions and breeding herds of elephant are seen daily. And as for the fancy new rooms and suites – no matter how spiritual the experience, it’s pretty nice to come back to the wide beds, crisp cotton sheets, huge bathrooms, power showers and a bit of the pampering we safari-goers have now got used to.

Need to know

Lucia van der Post travelled with Rainbow Tours (020-7226 1004, www.rainbowtours.co.uk). A three-night stay at Tree Camp costs from £1,580pp. This price includes safari suite accommodation, all game activities, meals, most drinks and Federal Air flights from Johannesburg to Londolozi airstrip. A chalet stay at Varty Camp costs from £1,020pp. Flights to South Africa are not included, but can be arranged.

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