The rain started slamming down the minute we arrived at the gate to Nkomazi Game Reserve. We had driven down in hot sunshine and, later, chatting to the game ranger and other staff, they told us it had been boiling hot just a few hours earlier. No one knew where the rain had come from or why. None had been forecast.
The reserve is near Nelspruit and the drive there is an easy three-and-a-half hours from Joburg.
We bumped along a dirt track to the camp, named Komati Lodge, featuring Victorian military "Africa campaign" tents.
Clustered around the Komati River, each tent - there are 11 noble tents and one Royal Suite - is discreetly placed away from the others. They are close, but not so close that you can hear each other or are even aware that there are others in the vicinity.
It's discreet, private and rather special. The gentle susurration of the river forms a background to sleep, and you could almost believe you were alone in the vast wilderness.
A jaw-dropping introduction to our own private tents awaited us. The hard lashing of the rains put paid to that, however, and we dashed through the mud to take tea in the vast tented main area.
It was real out of Africa stuff - a silver tea urn, armchairs covered in muted shades of beige, wicker chairs, all the while the rain pattering down as we drank tea and coffee and snacked on dainty quiches and other tea-time treats.
Our luxury tents were, well, luxurious, comfortable and yes, jaw-dropping. Far bigger than your average dinky townhouse. It wouldn't have been hard sharing, but I had my own.
Picture a king-sized bed just about dwarfed by the immensity of the room, armchairs angled towards the view of the river, with "windows" which are created when raising the sides of the tent, a fridge so well camouflaged we couldn't find it at first, and two reading lamps that you could, well, actually read by. They cast a bright welcome light at night and are worth mentioning. I've lost count of the number of times I've stared despairingly at lamps made out of wire sculptures with 40-watt bulbs. Attractive. But you can't read by them.
Then there was an annex that housed a shower, and a dressing room-cum-bathroom. A bathtub stood invitingly outside for those who have always dreamt of bathing under the stars. More on that later.
The rain had put paid to dinner around the boma - always a special way to begin time in the bush - and instead a buffet-style dinner was served in the tented dining room. Potjies, stews, salads, butternut squash and seafood satisfied us that night, a meal eaten by the glow of candlelight flickering across the polished wooden table.
Early mornings are another feature of out of Africa weekends, and taking the advice of my friend to seize the day, I braved the sunrise. It's always difficult, but then there are special sightings that always make me glad to have done so.
There's something incredibly soothing and calming about being in the wild, and being so close to nature.
The blue-shaded Barberton mountains were shrouded in mist as we drove, stretching away in an impressionistic blur.
And then, peculiarly, there's always a whacky sense of fun that seems to be cultivated by those who spend their lives in the bush.
I've had game rangers who could have hosted their own comedy shows. They've perfected a sense of comedic timing combined with deadpan delivery, and Hugo Coetzer, our ranger, was no exception.
Watching a group of zebras, Coetzer remarked that they were just donkeys in pyjamas and referred to a particular rowdy bunch as disco boys and party seekers. Yes, quite.
As we passed a group of wildebeest, calling "gnu" grumpily to each other, he remarked that they were just like "typical teens on a Saturday morning", bringing smiles to our group. And as we passed a vast plain, a quizzical, yet tender look crossed his face, as he said, "we call this the Little Serengeti".
A tale of the African rain chicken, the guinea fowl followed, and was told in typical Coetzer style.
If you ever wondered how this bird came to be called the African rain chicken, here we go.
"She was a snobby bird," he began, "and the other animals didn't like her. There was a drought and so the other animals decided to send her to the spirits to ask for rain. The spirits didn't like snobby birds and so they decided to teach her a lesson. One of her tasks was to carry water from the river to the mountains to make it rain. She didn't have a vessel to take the water, but she dipped her beak in water and carried it this way. So the spirits said okay, you're going to be a messenger to the plains animals, you'll be a messenger telling them when it's going to rain, you'll call the spirits to bring rain."
I don't think I'll ever quite look at this darkly coloured bird in the same way again.
And then, talking of spirits, Coetzer took us to what I would come to refer to in the weeks ahead as "the rock".
It was nameless to us, although this monolithic starkly curved structure surely once had a name. I can't explain the inextricable attraction I felt as we drove towards it.
Coetzer climbed down from the vehicle and explained that we had arrived at the sight of Bushmen paintings. They were sheltered under an overhang, relatively protected from time and weather and thus well preserved.
Animal shapes leapt among the strangely elongated human forms. "When humans were painted with the heads of crocodiles, for instance," said Coetzer, "or in these contorted ways, we believe that they were portraying humans who had passed into the spirit world."
There was certainly a strange sense to these figures, and to this place. Some things cannot be explained; nor, perhaps, should they be. There are other sites of rock paintings on the reserve - but heavy rains made these inaccessible.
Back at the lodge we explored the spa treatment rooms, also housed in a luxury tent.
The spa offers a range of massages, facials and exfoliating body scrubs - all performed while the Komati River winds past.
Dinner was again served in the luxury dining tent, a formal affair among that intense quiet of the bush, a quiet that somehow you don't remember missing when you're surrounded by the hurly-burly of city living.
We walked back to our tents and stood under the stars, talking about lives, futures, taking chances, seizing opportunities and making the most of what's before us.
I zipped myself tightly in my tent, my mind full of images of shamans and painters painting those who have passed on, trying to replicate in ochre and brown and white what they saw in their heads.
My friend, taking advantage of the clear, now warmish night, filled her outside tub with bubbles and bathed under the light of the stars.
We had both found what we were looking for, communed with something both timeless and nameless.
