It’s the quiet that stays with me. A quite that is found when drifting above the bush in an hot air balloon. WORDS Tessa Buhrmann
That particular kind of bushveld quiet you only find in the still of the morning – when the air is cool enough to feel fresh against your skin, and the landscape seems to hover in that in-between moment, gently stirring and awakening.
I’m staying at the luxurious Safari Plains in the Mabula Private Game Reserve; my first action on waking is to check the weather – thankfully it is still, so we are good to go. A short game drive later has us standing in the half-light, anticipation building as the balloon slowly fills.
And then, almost without noticing it, we are rising.
No rush, no dramatic moment. The ground simply falling away and suddenly we’re suspended above it all, drifting into a silence that feels deeper the higher we go. The only real sound is the occasional burst of the burner – a soft whoosh that quickly fades, leaving us once again wrapped in stillness.
Below, the bush began to reveal itself in the early morning light. Long shadows stretch from every tree, while hints of green push through the winter palette – new growth catching the sun, the landscape quietly shifting seasons. From above, the patterns became clearer: game paths thread through the veld and trees cast elongated shapes across the earth.
We drift slowly, carried by calm morning air, the visibility beautifully clear in the cool of the season. We can see for miles, the view extending to the Waterberg Mountains in the distance. And then, movement.
A small group of zebra nibbling their way through fresh growth. A giraffe, impossibly elegant, pauses just long enough to glance up before continuing on. A white rhino trundles behind her young calf – such a privilege to see. There’s something quietly surreal about this, the way the wildlife carries on as if this enormous balloon above them is the most natural thing in the world.
No engines. No urgency. No sense of intrusion. Just the bush waking up beneath us.
The landing comes as gently as the ascent – a soft touch back to earth, almost unnoticed. The vastness folds in, replaced by the immediacy of ground beneath our feet. It was a different kind of safari altogether. Slower. Softer. More about feelings than sightings.
And then, as tradition dictates, a glass of bubbly in hand – we toast to a beautiful flight, a gentle landing, and a moment that will linger long after it’s over. Thank you to Bill Harrop’s “Original” Balloon Safaris!
Across Africa, the celebratory glass now follows extraordinary aerial adventures – from the towering dunes of the Namib Desert to the wildlife-rich plains of the Maasai Mara and the bushveld of South Africa’s Mabula Game Reserve – each flight ending, as tradition dictates, with a sparkling toast beneath an open sky.
