As a blood-red sun dipped into the whistling acacia trees, a monkey screeched and an elephant trumpeted in return. Dusk settled rapidly to the background drone of insects and a soft breeze rustling the palms. We sipped our G and Ts, and shifted more comfortably in our camp chairs.

Sundowners on the African savannah are like no other cocktail anywhere in the world. The ghosts of Hemingway, Bogart and Gable wandered through the bush.

We'd seen lions as our Land Rover crossed a drying river bed a mile back; hippos and crocodiles before that, where the water was deep. Now the landscape was briefly at rest before the night-time struggle for survival.

We have been safari sceptics for years - always wanting to go, but put off by friends' reports of convoys of sightseers, and few chances of photographing animals that weren't surrounded by cars.

Then we heard about Tanzania's 'southern circuit'. The northern circuit is a well trodden path through famous national parks: the Serengeti; Ngorongoro Crater; Mount Kilimanjaro; and, just over the Kenyan border, the Masai Mara.

All 'Out of Africa' names to dream about, and all teaming with wildlife... unfortunately, much of it human.

They are so busy at times that the Land Rovers and minibuses have cut deep, rutted tracks following each other around. We were after a path less travelled by. Our second stop, Saadani Safari Lodge, was different, but equally enchanting. The national park was only opened in 1999.

It is the only park on the beach in East Africa and what a beach! Seven miles of silver sands where the only footprints are made by a few local fishermen and the vervet monkeys, ubiquitous and amusing creatures identified by the male's bright blue nether regions.

Here our tent - one of nine right on the beach - was equally sumptuous. The food was delicious with interesting combinations of vegetables, and the freshest seafood caught by those fishermen from a neighbouring village.

Saadani proudly boasts that it offers the rare combination of river, bush and beach. It also has a beautiful swimming pool with a little waterfall.

Its animals are shyer than in the long-established Selous, but that makes it more rewarding when you track them down. If you're lucky, they say you might spot elephants frolicking in the surf, although they didn't oblige for us.

It is also home to a breathtaking assortment of birds, best seen on the boat safaris which leave from the camp beach, then turn up the nearby Wami River.

Both camps emphasise that you are camping among wild animals and the law of the jungle rules. At Selous one moonlit night, a pack of cackling hyenas rampaged through the camp while we watched from our tent.

Another night, at Saadani, a pride of lions wandered through - an alarming discovery we made the following morning when we saw their tracks. Neither time were we too frightened, bolstered by the knowledge that both camps have armed guards on duty after dark.