Helen Raine was sceptical of the organised game reserves and their guaranteed animal sightings – until a visit to the Schotia Safaris Private Game Reserve left her more inclined to view them with a good eye.

I’m a National Park safari purist. After living for a year deep in the Zambian bush, with wild elephants snapping my washing line and impala grazing around my guy-ropes, the thought of visiting the Schotia Safaris Private Game Reserve with its “guaranteed lion sightings” didn’t exactly float my dugout canoe.

Worse, the reserve stocked exotics such as giraffe that aren’t even native to the Eastern Cape of South Africa. I couldn’t imagine why anyone would squash into a safari vehicle with a bunch of other tourists, when Addo Elephant National Park was right on the doorstep and allowed self-drive.

But then I hit a small snag. My husband and I were staying inside the park, in a traditionally-thatched cottage at Matyholweni camp. It was surprisingly plush – I’d been imagining creaking camp beds and an outhouse, and instead got daily maid service and fancy rolled towels. The problem was that, while we were allowed earlier admission to the park than other visitors, the interior gate closed before dark. That meant that we were going to miss out the more cryptic, nocturnal animals – aardvark, aardwolf, caracal and nightjars.

And then there was Rod. For our first night at Addo, all the accommodation inside the park was sold out, so we splashed out on a luxury lodge, the Addo Dung Beetle Guest Farm. We got a chalet that would have housed a couple of families, a jacuzzi overlooking a reedbed filled with Red Bishop and Masked Weaver nests and the effervescent Rod as our host. He was a force of nature, sending us packing when we arrived too early, filling us in on the horrors of rhino poaching and selling us a game drive in a private reserve.

I’m not quite sure how it happened. One minute, we were bemoaning the lack of night drive opportunities, and the next, we were parting with R1000 for something I swore I’d never do. But Rod was cunning – he got to me through my stomach with his descriptions of the traditional South African braai after the tour.

We arrived at Schotia with buyer’s remorse. This was going to be lame, the equivalent of a childhood trip to the European safari park. We sniffed at the pictures of lions on a kill and hippos bathing, praying that the food would at least be decent.

After check-in, five safari vehicles roared out of the carpark, each crammed with eight or nine tourists. Our guide Carl was pretty quiet on the entry road but, as soon as we saw our first antelope, a red hartebeest, it became obvious that he really knew his stuff.

After a year doing game surveys, I know a lot about African wildlife but he still had some new insights for me. We lurched along, past waterbuck, impala, a pure white springbok (all introduced, but nice to see) and some local wildlife like greater kudu and common duiker. And then we got lucky and spotted the rhino.

These two rhino, named Bonnie and Clyde, have one heck of a story. Rhino poaching is at catastrophic levels across Africa. Their horns can fetch up to €100,000 per kilo for use in Chinese medicine (the horn is actually made of keratin and has no medicinal value whatsoever). With a rhino horn weighing up to 3kg, that’s easily enough cash to attract organised crime syndicates.

There are still some aspects of game reserves that justify scepticism, but the animals are wild

Mostly, poachers track the animals in the wild, shoot them, hack the horns out of their faces and leave the creature to die. But here, in a small game reserve, the poachers could not afford to make any noise. They bypassed security, darted the two animals with a massive dose of tranquiliser (enough to kill them), sawed off the horns and fled by helicopter.

Bonnie and Clyde were lucky, though. They were found before they bled to death although, sadly, lying on the ground for so long caused Bonnie to miscarry the calf she was carrying. Closing the wounds took months of veterinary care and, with their horns growing back very slowly, the rhino find it hard to defend themselves from elephants. But they are, at least, alive. The vast majority of rhino die when their horns are poached.

This was really the turning point of the drive. Sure, these are white rhino and the native rhinos are Black; but the reserve owner is putting his money and security on the line to help conserve a species which is on the verge of extinction. These days, no-one wants rhino on their land; they are too much of a liability.

By the time we stopped the car and got out to walk amongst the giraffes, I was feeling a lot less cynical; trekking through the bush to get close to these stately creatures, dodging Cape Springhare burrows and Warthog holes was wonderful; within the National Park, you must remain in your vehicle at all times for safety.

Since the reserve is small, it’s easy to track down the animals. We quickly found the small pride of lions and watched them drink from a watering hole. And after the braai (it was as good as Rod said, but I didn’t care so much by that point), night fell and we went out to find the creatures of the dark to a sound track of roaring lions.

I would love to tell you that we ticked off caracal, aardvark and aardwolf. Sadly, we didn’t get any of them. We did find a brown hyena though, which had apparently found its own way into the park, rather than being bought. And, disappointingly, Carl whipped past the nightjars. But then we happened on something astounding.

Osha, the big bull elephant was in musth, ready to mate and itching for a fight with the male rhino. The resulting scrap took place about a metre away from our safari vehicle and had us riveted, wincing and shrinking back in our seats, as Osha repeatedly threatened the Clyde, who stood his ground, backing up but refusing to run for fear of a tusk in his rear (angry elephants have been known to kill rhino).

This battle of wills went on for about half an hour, as we reversed and maneuvered to get a better view. At one point, the reserve boss radioed in to suggest that Carl try to separate them by driving between the two. A Dutch woman in the back wailed with dismay; she was already petrified. In a final showdown, the elephant rushed the rhino, shorn horn collided with tusk, chipping a piece off and the elephant decided perhaps he’d had enough for one evening.

By the time we got back to the car park, it was completely deserted. All the other guides and tourists were long gone and Carl looked utterly exhausted. He’d gone all out to give us the full Africa experience and, despite the small size of the reserve and the fact that some of the animals are imported from other locations in South Africa, he succeeded.

And I’d begun to understand the possible benefits of a well-run game reserve. Schotia offers a corridor of habitat along Addo National Park boundary... that’s better ecologically than having a dairy farm or a housing estate on the doorstep. There are still some aspects of game reserves that justify scepticism, but the animals are wild. The lions hunt, the antelope live in natural herds and mate, the elephants wander about trashing the trees and the crocodile lies in wait for unwary Egyptian geese, all within easy viewing distance.

If you have kids, it’s a must do and, even if you’re an African travel veteran, it turns out that getting in a safari vehicle with a bunch of tourists is actually seriously good fun.