Easy does it!!

The new honeymoon couple arrived yesterday from the South Carolina in the States and are very quiet, I almost felt like I needed a crowbar to prize open their mouths just to find out what they wanted to see. The quiet drive home was a little awkward, but peaceful.

We set off on our afternoon drive after Solly (My Tracker) and I decided what we were going to be looking for and where. We decide the lions were a good place to start as we had new guests and on the way we bumped into a huge herd of about 50 elephant...ranging in size from babies to huge mothers and of course the massive bulls following the herd waiting for one of the females to come into oestrus so they could get some action!! Two young males were testing their strength against one another while the rest fed on gwari berris and buffalo thorn. After spending about an hour with these giants we left to go see what was happening with the lions.

We knew that the lions had moved a whole 20 metres since the night before... All thirteen cats had been lying around the pan the night before and after all the game drives had made their way back to their respective lodges, a buffalo decided to go for a drink at the same pan! I can just picture the grins on the lions faces as the big buffalo emerged from the dry river bed moving towards the little pan...13 lions all crouched low waiting for the right time to spring the ambush! They pulled it down just as it was heading back into the river bed and this is all RIGHT (30 metres) in front of Selati Lodge (Which had no guests and was closed, MURPHY's LAW). By the time the vehicles arrived the next morning the buff was 80 percent finished. That translates to approximately 500kg of meat between 13 cats...which is almost 40kg of meat per cat after eating the night before... I have never seen anything like it, these cats were bulging at the seams. They were so fat that they could barely breath, panting like they had just run the comrads. We then moved to the carcass where the pride male and 2 lionesses were still feeding and the noise was incredible...these three fighting over the scraps that were left behind. The big male only now getting his turn as he has been severely weakened by bovine TB!

After the feeding fest we moved up onto a high view point for sundowners, looking out over the bush, onto the Drakensburg mountains with hues of pinks, oranges and reds filling the sky and the cold bite of the evening chill touching our skin. And here we sat enjoying the view and discussing the intensity of the lions feeding. Solly recounting a story of how previously at this spot with another group of guests, they had been snuck up on by an elephant and been charged...well as you can guess, all the guests seem to make two or three deft little steps closer to the vehicle. After drinks the bush was very quiet, we saw a few elephants and buffalo but the cats remained elusive.

The next morning the cold had gripped hard and with everyone wrapped tight in their blankets and hot water bottles being hugged tightly we headed off in search of a leopard. It was an hour and a half before we picked up the first tracks of a big male leopard and after tracking him for 15 minutes we were disappointed to see his tracks moving over our boundary into the next reserve...

We continued along stopping for little antelope and trees to fill the time and eventually stopped to enjoy a cup of hot coffee to warm up the cold start to the day! Afterwards we were driving by a dam when Solly turned and asked if I smelt the popcorn. I reversed and as sure as shit it smelt like I was at the cinema...this is a sure sing that a leopard had been here no more than 10 minutes ago as leopard urine smells like popcorn. We proceeded along and found some tracks and they headed into some thick bush. Another vehicle in the area called in some more tracks close to where we were so the two of us set out tracking this boy...30 minutes later, still no luck and it was now 9.30 and the guests were starting to get bored and hungry so we had to give up the hunt. We will have to wait till this afternoons drive to start from scratch!!

After breakfast we set out on a nice bush walk and we were not 300 metres out the gate when we saw a HUGE elephant bull feeding just off the road we were walking on. I ran through my plan for moving closer with the guests and we set off stalking closer to this enormous bull. As we reached our destination he decided that the tree we were taking cover behind was his next victim so we quietly moved back and retreated about 40 metres away behind another bush. He bypassed the bush and continued past our position as we crouched in the grass, I could see that if I didn't move us soon he would catch our scent and we would be far too close to him to get out without incident so I told the group to start moving back slowly. As we retreated the elephant picked up our scent, then picked up his head, spread his ears and started towards us, now looking larger than ever he let us know that were in his space and he didn't like it. I cocked my rifle, ready for the worst, and slowly backed out while ensuring that none of the guest were doing anything stupid. As we moved further, he again came closer just to make sure that we were in fact moving off, and then he turned to the gwari bush next to him and started devouring the whole thing. I knew then we were safe then and led the group to a point of safety far away for the big guy, removed the round from the chamber and assured the ghostly white faces that we were safe. The rest of the walk was event free, we enjoyed the flowers and bird and made our way back to camp incident free.