Botswana is a blockbuster of sweeping views and wonderful wildlife

At first glance, we could almost be in England. My three children and I have flown over 11 hours from London, but emerge to overcast skies.

Our guide is in a right hand-drive Land Rover and even the road signs look the same. A familiar triangular red warning sign looms in the distance: but, what’s that? A picture of an elephant?

As if on cue, there is a thrashing in the undergrowth as an elephant lumbers out, ears flapping. My 11-year-old daughter shrieks, prompting my teenage sons to raise their heads from their phones. We are along way from England.

We are in Botswana, which this year marks 50 years of independence from Britain, though this beautiful African nation still has a deep connection with its past.

Its current president, Ian Khama, was born in England and a film celebrating his parents’ controversial love story is in cinemas now, starring Rosamund Pike as his English mother Ruth Williams and David Oyelowo as his father, Sir Seretse Khama. 

Khama Sr led Botswana to independence, becoming its first democratically elected president and transforming it from the world’s third poorest economy into one of its fastest-growing.

Elephants crossing: Conservation efforts have meant a boom in the number of wild animals

In other words, the country did rather well once Britain gave up the reins. And yet the film is called A United Kingdom, referring to Botswana, but underscoring its closeness to Britain.

Arriving at the fabulous Ngoma Safari Lodge, we are greeted with a very English offer of Earl Grey tea or gin and tonic. The lodge blends so perfectly with its surroundings that it seems as though we are in the middle of nowhere. Inside, the whole of

Botswana appears to be laid out at our feet: an expansive terrace overlooks the Chobe River floodplain where, far below us, zebra and giraffe are congregating to drink.

My sons do not look at their phones again for days — for once, real life is more interesting.

We are shown to two of the lodge’s eight deceptively rusticlooking huts, which span out across a ridge. They are supremely luxurious with floor-to-ceiling windows looking out on to the animals. It’s like being in an episode of Planet Earth II. Outside each hut is a private deck and plunge pool, occasionally drained overnight by elephants.

Fantastic photobomb: Helena on safari with her children Isabel, 11, Ben, 15 and Joe, 13

My sons share one hut, my daughter and I another. After dark, we are not allowed to leave our huts for dinner without an escort — due to the very real risk of becoming dinner ourselves.

My sons are delighted that I cannot nag them to go to bed. But they are so exhausted after all the excitement that there is no need. Our days fall into an easy pattern of lavish breakfasts, spectacular game drives, river cruises, picnics in the bush and candlelit dinners under the lodge’s 3,000-year-old baobab tree.

On one game drive, we come across a zebra that has been killed by lions. They have hauled the carcass into a ravine and our guide Timothy drives right up to the edge, cautioning us not to make any sudden movements.

Two lionesses raise their heads to stare at us, noses bloodied. After a minute of tension, they go back to their kill.

That slow southern style: Ngoma Safari Lodge blends in perfectly with its surroundings

When we return to the same location at the crack of dawn the next morning, they are lying, sated, by the ravine — but will not leave the carcass.

Hyenas, jackals and vultures circle, biding their time as the sun rises. We wait quietly in the cold for nearly an hour, wrapped in ponchos, watching. Eventually the lions lope off and the scavengers pounce.

In a local village, we meet 96-year-old Keloesitswe James Phuzedi, who has lived here all his life, planting crops and rearing cattle. Almost toothless, he walks with a cane, standing in front of his corrugated iron and stick hut.

I ask him if he has noticed any difference in Botswana since independence. He says that life is both better — as farmers receive assistance from the government — and worse, as a huge increase in wild animals, thanks to the government’s conservation policies, threatens his livelihood.

Nation in the spotlight: Rosamund Pike and David Oyelowo in the new film A United Kingdom

‘Elephants destroy my crops and lions are killing my cattle,’ he says, shaking his head in despair.

In A United Kingdom, there is a scene with Rosamund Pike lying in the arms of Oyelowo/Khama on a terrace: ‘I didn’t just marry you for your good looks,’ he murmurs in his wife’s ear.

‘Liar,’ she giggles, knowing full well their love runs far deeper. The same could be said of Botswana. You may be attracted by its good looks. But something fundamental lodges it in your heart.