August 27, 2026
A first family safari, as remembered by the only adult who packed enough snacks
When the Harrison family announced their first trip to Africa, seven-year-old Max watched twelve wildlife documentaries. Five-year-old Lily packed a mermaid costume, three crayons and no trousers. Tom bought a safari hat with enough pockets to qualify as a studio apartment, while Claire packed everything the others would later claim to need urgently.
At the airport, the family emerged with six suitcases, four backpacks, two neck pillows and Tom’s new binoculars, which were hanging backwards. Their driver looked at the luggage, looked at the family, and performed the first impressive act of wildlife management: fitting everything into one vehicle without tranquilising anybody.
On the drive to the reserve, Max searched for lions while Lily spotted seventeen “giraffes”—mostly electricity pylons and one alarmed man carrying a ladder. Tom read facts from his guidebook until Claire pointed out that it was upside down. “Southern Hemisphere,” he explained.
The lodge overlooked a waterhole where impala wandered about like residents checking property values. During the safety briefing, the ranger said, “Keep your doors closed and never leave food outside.” Lily asked whether lions could open zips. Tom moved the biscuits to an inner pocket, thereby misunderstanding the main danger.
Ten minutes later, a baboon appeared on their veranda. It stared at Tom. Tom stared back. The baboon picked up a packet of biscuits. Tom said, “Put those down,” in the firm voice he normally reserved for children near electrical sockets. The baboon opened the packet, ate one biscuit and paused as if considering Tom’s feedback. Then it took the whole packet. It was difficult to say who had won the argument, but the baboon left with the snacks, Tom’s dignity and possibly his room key.
The alarm rang at 4:45 a.m., a time Tom believed was used only by bakers and criminals. Soon the family was wrapped in blankets in an open safari vehicle, clutching hot chocolate while the adults tried to remember their own names.
The ranger found fresh lion tracks. Everyone fell silent until Lily whispered, at the volume normally used to address ships in fog, “DO LIONS LIKE PANCAKES?” Somewhere in the bush, every animal reconsidered its morning plans.
Then a herd of elephants crossed the road, a calf trotting between two adults with no obvious operating instructions. Even Lily was silent—the rarest sighting of the trip. Tom took seventy-three photographs, sixty-nine featuring the back of Claire’s hat.
The first low arrived soon afterwards when the vehicle stopped beside a magnificent leopard hidden in a tree. Everyone could see it except Max. “Where?” he hissed. “Above the fork.” “Which fork?” “The big branch.” “They’re all branches!” By the time Max found the leopard, it had climbed down and vanished. He took the news with the calm maturity expected of a seven-year-old: he declared the reserve badly organised, the leopard unprofessional and the tree “deliberately confusing”.
After dinner, escorted back to their room beneath a sky crowded with stars, the family heard a deep roar. Tom froze. Claire froze. Max whispered, “Lion.” Lily whispered, “Maybe it wants pancakes.” The ranger explained that the sound had travelled from much farther away than it seemed. This reassured no one, especially when a harmless gecko fell from the wall outside their door and Tom performed a sideways leap of such surprising quality that Claire briefly considered entering him in the Olympics. The gecko remained composed.
By the end of the trip, the Harrisons had seen elephants, giraffes, zebra, buffalo, a distant rhino and one leopard briefly visible to three quarters of the family. They had also survived early mornings, red dust in every sock, a spectacular juice-box leak and the knowledge that vervet monkeys could unzip a backpack faster than Lily could.
On the flight home, Max wrote that Africa was “the best place ever, except for the badly positioned leopard”. Lily drew an elephant wearing her plastic tiara. Tom discovered that his pocketed safari hat had left a permanent stripe across his forehead. Claire scrolled through the photographs: blurred zebras, half a giraffe, countless pictures of dust and one perfect frame of the children watching the elephants in complete astonishment.
That was the real high. The low came during unpacking, when Claire found a small bag labelled “interesting droppings” beside a hotel teaspoon, three acacia thorns and a packet of biscuits nobody remembered buying. She called an immediate family meeting. Max blamed Lily. Lily blamed the leopard. Tom checked his pockets, discovered the lodge room key and quietly suggested they never discuss the trip again. At that exact moment, the doorbell rang. For one terrible second, everyone expected the baboon.
