I dropped into the staff quarters at Tafika camp. An African broadbill had been heard there the previous mornings, and in the grey light before the sun got out of bed, I went to look for it. And huzzah! There it was: filling the glade with the deafening creak that the bird makes with its wings: an improbable sound from an improbable bird. It was a cheerful start to our last morning in the Valley.

After breakfast we set off for the airport, all of us ever-so-lightly sombre. We had all, in our different ways, found wonders, often of the kind we didn’t expect. This place goes deeper than you bargain for. Last night we had gone round the dinner-table, each of us picking our best moments: best moments from Kayenda, best moments from Tafika.

And though we had all been very close to marvellous things like lions and wild dogs and elephants, the prevailing mood caused us to reveal private and less obvious joys: quiet reflective moments when you realise the truly marvellous nature of the ordinary.

Now as we moved towards the park gates, the airport getting closer with every revolution of the wheels, I have one more thing to report. We passed a lilac-breasted roller, the signature bird of the Valley, an everyday miracle of colour and aerobatics, one of the great joy-bringers of the wooded savannah. And I made an announcement.

“It’s an old Luangwa superstition: if you see a lilac-breasted roller just before you leave the national park, you will certainly come back.” I had, of course, just invented this tradition, but it was the right note to leave on.

• I was co-leading the Ultimate Luangwa safari for wildlifeworldwide.com. Next year I will be co-leading https://www.wildlifeworldwide.com/group-tours/sacred-combe-safari and I will also be participating in https://www.wildlifeworldwide.com/group-tours/festival-of-wildlife-zambia