With a clank and a hiss of steam, the 1953 14a Class Locomotive, pulls away, leading the beautifully restored, fully air-conditioned carriages behind it. Fully restored to their original beauty the carriages provide the backdrop to your African colonial-era luxury safari train experience.

Journeying by luxury steam train seems like a journey in a time machine to an era marked by elegance and opulence, or into an Agatha Christie novel where everyone dined in diamonds and dinner jackets. While the dress code on the Bushtrack Express is smart casual, there’s absolutely no reason why you shouldn’t dress for the era of luxury steam!

As you travel along the ‘Cape to Cairo’ line built by Cecil John Rhodes, the reason he instructed the engineers to “Build a bridge across the Zambezi, where the trains, as they pass, will catch the spray of the Falls” will be obvious. It is the perfect location.

The Bushtracks Express stops in the middle of the 100-year-old Victoria Falls Bridge right over the deep gorge. This ‘no man’s land’ is the natural border between Zambia and Zimbabwe and here you can disembark to enjoy the spectacular sight of the Victoria Falls, the world’s largest sheet of falling water standing at a combined width of 1708m and 108m high, casting up a spray that can be seen 40kms away. After crashing into the ‘boiling pot’ at the base of the falls, the raging Zambezi River thunders through the gorge on its way to the Indian Ocean. There is no better way to see a spectacular African sunset than through the mist of the Victoria Falls.

Whether you’re in the club car, the dining car or the observation car or even the observation deck at the back of the train, the journey will be a magical one as, with the freedom to move between carriages, life, albeit elegant and opulent life slows to the heartbeat of the train. Outside the train is wild, untamed Africa. And this is where the train takes you as you enjoy a five-course dinner in the Jafuta conservancy of the Zambezi National Park. African elephant, lion, Cape buffalo and leopard make their home here, as do sable antelope, eland, zebra, Southern giraffe, and kudu. You may be lucky enough to catch sight of them as the train travels at a stately and unhurried pace through this unspoiled wilderness. Incredible scenery, bygone-era luxury, dedicated and professional staff, fine wining and dining, could anything be more romantic?

The Bushtracks Express is the perfect way to have an ‘Out of Africa’ experience of your own.