Who said luxe lodges & kids don't mix? 5-star Karoo safari for families

Do you know the scent of the Karoo? It is wild sage and thyme, antelope and dry, red dust. You can smell it best in the morning air. It changes as the day warms up, and again when it cools down.

At Samara Game Reserve in the Eastern Cape, 40km from Graaff-Reinet, a conservation project seven years ago saw the fences come down on 11 neighbouring farms.

Wildlife was reintroduced and rehabilitated. Cheetah returned for the first time in 100 years.

The land had to recreate its scent, which had been masked by cattle and sheep and the alien plants grown to feed them.

Today, it's nearly back to its age-old self - valleys and flat lands dotted with Shepherd's trees. It is so empty but so full of vegetation that the scenery looks as if it is layer upon shaded layer of green and pink.

The scent changes as you unwrap those layers.

When you go up up up, the 1,300m-high mountain with its pink grasses (a strange mix of white and red tufts), you find wild mountain baboon, zebra and buck. The crisp air is herby and sweet. The area near the river is earthy with mud. Our game drives were scented with buttery chocolate biscuits, good coffee, rum and Amarula.

You could read interesting facts, such as Karoo is a San word meaning "Land of Great Thirst" or that it is semi-arid and the size of Germany. But only when you are in it do you feel the isolation, the pristine air and warm sun, and you notice how each step makes a little dust cloud.

At Samara, the rustic-chic accommodation is gentle on the landscape. If you are brave enough, you can sleep on the Star Bed, poised on a platform on stilts, with a bathroom, a two-way radio and that's all.

The Karoo Lodge is scented with straw and cooking, lavender, aged books and antiques. We arrived to lemonade scented with rosemary stalks - delicious, cold and sweet. With its wraparound porch for sun lounging, 20 or so guests can loll about like lazy cows, batting away occasional bugs.

We were the only guests at Manor House, a few kilometres away from the main lodge. The house comes with a private game vehicle driven by Julius Mkhize, plus a butler and a chef, as well as some smiling, disappearing ladies who fill the baths with rose-scented bubbles and steaming water, knowing your bones will ache after those bouncy game drives.

They also light 100 lanterns to welcome you back after dark. Their scent is the floral, warm water waiting in the foyer to wash your hands after a dusty day.

The chef and butler team made sure the home was filled with the smells of comfort - wood fires by the dinner table, meaty pies and jam scones for tea, Karoo lamb and roast birds, treats to make little girls clap happily, sliced carrots and cucumbers to crunch through.

For the children, there are also personal safari-themed colouring books, rock-painting and plenty of fun outdoors: tracking a tortoise or a warthog, finding birds' nests and special flowers.

The house is large with high ceilings, and hundreds of masks to watch over you as you sleep.

There is a long, warm pool that stretches out towards the Sneeuberg. At its forefront, a little dam is visited by naughty baboons and monkeys, warthog and tortoise and the mythical aardvark.

On day two, we went up the mountain, Kondoa, with a packed a lunch of Scotch eggs and gingerbread, salads and sticky wings, which we ate in the shade of a shiny olive tree.

Mkhize took us to Eagle's Point, so high up and a view so vast, you struggle to breathe.

On the way down, we drove through a dry river bed. When it is flowing, you can have lunch with your feet in it and make up your mind to sleep in the Star Bed. It was created because the stars don't seem to end, they join the lantern lights at an invisible point, the dark bringing its own scent of a Karoo night, a thing you will always remember.

PLAN YOUR TRIP

Rates are from R2,500 per person per night in low season to R5,700 in high season. See samara.co.za.

• Naidoo was a guest of Samara.