I first visited Horseback Africa sometime around early 2003. I had done a few horseback safaris before in various places in southern Africa, but none came close to the quality of this one. I was no rider and the horses I had ridden before knew this. They simply plodded along the same route day after day and with a turkey like me on board they were going to do this at the pace they wanted.

Horseback Africa's horses were to have no such luxury. They are trained, to a high standard, to be ridden western or English style and a different route is taken each day depending on where the guide thinks the most popular animals might be at that particular time. Not only that, but the guides - either Colin or one or more of his sons - teach as they go. On my very first ride with them I managed an (almost) in-control canter!

The next time I had a free day in Johannesburg I went again. Then my girlfriend, Louisa, and I went there on vacation in September 2004. She loved the place as much as I did and we began to visit whenever we could (not as often as we'd like as we live in the UK).

In December 2005 I agreed to buy their lions.

They had always borrowed lions from other breeders but wanted to set up their own programme, the idea being to sell the cubs for rehabilitation into the wild around Africa.

The lions live in a large enclosure near the main lodge and house - the estate is too small for predators to roam free amongst the many antelope and zebras. The MacRae family runs "lion walks" where people come to learn about lions and interact with them, even taking them for a walk!

This is how things have gone so far...

Well, at least it will be when I get around to writing it all up. The timeline will give you a fairly clinical overview of what has happened, but I have mostly kept the highs and lows out of it in favour of "just the facts".