I Left Everything. Africa Gave It Back.

And then, in 2011, my life fell apart in the worst possible way. Whilst Prince William and Princess Kate were celebrating their amazing nuptials and England was celebrating I was dumped by my then fiancee.

It was then I decided to do something very out of character and booked a volunteer project to Zimbabwe for a month. This was when I discovered Africa.

So a year later when an opportunity arose on a project in South Africa, I left. This time the World was celebrating the London Olympics and I felt like the only one trying to escape.

I packed up and moved to South Africa alone – to work as a volunteer coordinator for a community project in KwaZulu-Natal. It didn’t go to plan. I was let go within my probationary period. I was alone in a country I barely knew, and no idea what came next. I knew I didn’t want to just go back to England.

What came next was Ashley.

He was finishing up his time monitoring African painted dogs for another project at the same game reserve when we met. When I was let go from my project, he offered something unexpected to come and stay with him for a few weeks and see how things go. He had just started a new job at a Big 5 game reserve monitoring black rhino working alongside WWF, Wildlife Act and BREEP (Black Rhino Expansion Project). Deep bush. Middle of nowhere. No plan. Just Africa.

I said yes.

And it was there – in a Big 5 game reserve in the middle of the African wilderness, barefoot and completely unmoored from everything I thought my life was supposed to look like – that something shifted.

I watched the animals. I watched the landscape. I felt the particular quality of stillness that the bush has at dusk when everything goes quiet and then suddenly, deeply alive. And I thought: if Ashley and I go the distance, I want to raise our children like this. Barefoot. Outside. Running around in nature. Our own little bush babies.

We went the distance.

Our journey wasn’t straightforward – it rarely is for the things worth having. When my eldest was born I experienced severe postnatal depression, and we moved to Ashley’s family in the Eastern Cape until I found my footing again. But when a position came up in St Lucia – the town on the edge of iSimangaliso Wetland Park that had captured my heart from the beginning – we went for it without hesitation.

We got married in St Lucia. We always knew we’d come back.

Now I live here with Ashley and our three children – our bush babies, exactly as I’d imagined – on the edge of one of Africa’s most extraordinary UNESCO World Heritage ecosystems. Wildlife roams nearby. Hippos visit the estuary. A family of warthogs lives just down the road. And every morning brings something worth wondering at.

Kate on Safari was born from everything this life has taught me.

Fourteen years of paediatric nursing showed me what children need clinically. Africa showed me what they need as human beings. And raising three children in the shadow of iSimangaliso has shown me every single day what happens when those two things come together – curiosity, resilience, wonder, and a deep sense of belonging to something larger than themselves.

I created Kate on Safari for the families who believe – as I do – that the natural world is the greatest classroom on earth. For the parents raising children who ask big questions. For the grandparents who want to give something that lasts longer than a toy. For the educators who know that the best learning happens outside.

And for the children who will grow up to be the people who fix the broken things.

Let Africa teach your children what the world is made of. 🌍

Katie Paediatric Nurse. Health Visitor. Mother of Three. Co-owner, The Little Bush Baby Company Founder, Kate on Safari St Lucia, KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa

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