It is the start of something unexpectedly magical. Where I have pictured a slow-drip Chinese water torture of parental shame – food spat, tantrums tossed, guests affronted – instead, the children are a disconcerting delight. It’s ironic, because 90% of guests at Ant’s Nest have kids, and the mood here is one of chin-chucking indulgence.

What you can’t help falling for at Ant’s Nest are the owners, the eponymous Ant and wife Tessa. Burly (him), beautiful (her), with slow, burnished smiles that warm like an African sun (both), they look and sound like what the wife and I might have been without kids. “Coming for a ride?” Ant says to the boys, and before I can explain that they’ve never ridden before, there they are, up and in the saddle and trotting off towards a herd of giraffe with big cowboy grins stretching beneath their helmets.

Oh God, it’s so banal, I know, out here under an African sky, to gush about the kids’ stuff – favourite meals arriving straight after game drives, Jeeps pitching up to whisk weary riders back to the lodge, inflatable toys scattered about the pool in case the slow-sloping “beach” isn’t kiddy-thrill enough – but it doesn’t half help you find your family-holiday mojo.

In fact, the real trick at Ant’s Nest is that “family holiday” isn’t just a euphemism for “mum-and-dad holiday”. Sure, you can pack your kids off on bug walks and horse rides if you’re Kids’ Club kind of people, but here you can do everything alongside your kids, rather than away from them.

A wild time in Zambia with the kids

David James Smith took his timid but enraptured family on safari in Zambia. Mercifully, they also tracked down a Jacuzzi

• Aaronovitch on a family safari of Zambia

• The world’s top safaris

• Zambia in the wet season

The 10 best family adventures

Families want to go on proper adventures too. David Wickers explores this year’s best trips for all ages

• Big families, big holiday ideas

Inside South Africa's townships

Martin Wroewill will never forget his family’s holiday in the townships of South Africa; nor, he hopes, will his kids

Related Internet Links

• Read 570 more articles in our Family Travel section

• Family Holiday Offers from Times+

I won’t pretend it makes for the most relaxing of game drives – try soaking up the wonder of an eland herd while your three-year-old roots around in your pocket for Jelly Tots – but blimey, it’s magical. Toasting marshmallows over an open braai, tracking a family of rhinos on foot – it’s the stuff of memories.

OUR SECOND hotel, Jaci’s Safari Lodge, is also the stuff of memories. Not all of them good. It has been a 4½ hour drive west to the Madikwe Reserve, the last hour along a dirt road whose bumpy contours become etched like a sonograph line across our brains.

“Your game drive leaves at 4.30,” says the manager. “Tea is at four o’clock.” I look at my watch: 4.17pm. “How long is the game drive?” I ask. “Three and a half hours,” he says. I look at the kids: the five-year-old has his head on the table; the baby starts to cry. I know exactly how he feels.

In the end, we do go for the game drive. In for a penny. And it’s great. They have the Big Five here in Madikwe Reserve – lion, leopard, rhino, elephant, buffalo – and where Ant’s Nest can occasionally test your passion for kudus, zebras and wildebeest, at Jaci’s we are following a pride of lions stalking impalas. “Who do you want to win?” asks the five-year-old, suddenly uncertain.

The lions do, and it’s incredible. Impalas are doing cartwheels over lunging jaws, hooves are thundering past the Jeep. And as if the censors have arranged the moment themselves, the kill itself happens discreetly off set, away behind a bush, close enough that we can actually feel the growling and ripping on our eardrums, but not so in-your-tiny-face that the five-year-old has to witness eyeballs rolling, hooves twitching, jugulars pumping. That said, he’d probably love a jugular pumping. “Did you see their bloody faces?” he keeps saying to anyone who’ll listen, wild-eyed, aflame.

So, the wildlife at Jaci’s Safari Lodge is fantastic. We see elephants, buffaloes, lions chasing giraffes, and more birds than a three-year-old can shake a £400 digital camera at while shouting: “My turn, get off!” Likewise, our guide, Nico, is a great big, wide-smiled, overgrown toddler of a man, endlessly amused by our boys, for ever ready with a Lion King reference to help explain a point. We love him, as we love Naomi, who sits in the dark watching the boys at night while the wife and I eat kudu pot roast beneath the stars.

But. Is it the rooms (glorified tents, surrounded by a slightly oppressive, encroaching scrub), is it the size (there are eight thatch-covered tents, but it feels like a larger, slicker operation)? Somehow, we never quite fall for the lodge itself. At Ant’s Nest, someone has written “Doesn’t get better for a family break” in the guestbook. At Jaci’s Safari Lodge, the only guestbook reference to kids is this: “Wonderful experience, shame about the riotous children in the restaurant.”

Is it worth it, then? Well, it’ll seriously help if your sister lives in Johannesburg (or failing that, if you can factor in an extra night around Jo’burg to recover from the flight). I pretty much dribbled my way through the first 24 hours, which isn’t ideal if you’re paying £500 or so per day for the privilege. Because safari doesn’t come cheap: five nights with flights will cost you more than £5,000 with a couple of kids. Throw in a baby and you’re getting closer to £6,000. You could live for eight weeks at Center Parcs for less.

Times recommends

• Tuesday: the latest airport and flights news
• Wild Girls hit the Klosters slopes
• Red Sea: the complete guide