3.30pm and time for high tea, which was very welcome seeing as though I had missed lunch in order to catch up some much needed sleep. Beef sausage rolls, fruit and chocolate brownies with a caramel topping.....YUM... Belly full enough to last me till dinner I rounded up the troops and we headed out. I went to where the guys had seen our sickly male lion that morning hoping to start the drive with a high profile sighting to please my new guests.
We eventually found his tracks but after following them we saw that he had crossed over north to the next property in search of the rest of the pride. This was a big blow! With the new guests only here for 2 nights and the lions off the property there was a good chance that they wouldn't get to see lions. There was nothing we could do so we moved out of the area and went looking for something else. We stumbled upon 3 rhinos that had been mud rolling and were covered from top to tip with a thick layer of mud. They started playing with each other, pushing and jousting with their horns and running around after one another. We were all enjoying this spectacle when the one female thought she would include us in the game and started galloping over to us and stopped about 5 metres from the car. It was only then she realised that we were not another rhino and very quickly back pedalled to a more comfortable distance,
We left these guys to their fun and moved off to an open plain where we watched the sun drop behind the horizon and the guests all enjoyed gin and tonics. The sky turned an intense red and we all just savoured the moment. Due to the failing light we hadn't seen a big rhino bull that was slowly moving towards us. We spotted him 40m away from us and with no malicious intent he simply kept that distance and kept walking past us.
The night drive was very quiet and no one got to see anything. the radio was dead quiet. Eventually we found a massive chameleon in a tree and I went and took it out and brought him back to the vehicle for the guests to examine! After lots of "Oo's" and "Ah's" we made our way back to the lodge for a traditional braai and gorged ourselves on the biltong entree, 3 bean soup, chops, boerewors and sirloin with pap and sauce and baby potatoes for mains and koeksisters and mini milk tarts for desert.
This morning we were out nice and early and after hearing the lions roaring last night Cameron and I set out to track and find these guys...and find them we did. 13 of them lying on an open area, sun rising in the background and guests smiling from ear to ear. My honeymoon couple was leaving early to catch a flight so I wanted to find them hippo before they went but unfortunately we had no luck. Once they had been picked up and the rest of us enjoyed a cup of coffee and tea we went back towards the lions cause a buffalo had been seen heading their way. We found the track for the lion and the buffalo heading into the bush so we circled the block to see if they had popped out somewhere. No tracks so we knew they were in the bush somewhere and we would have to walk in to find them. I grabbed my rifle and Solly and I, with the help of my mate Allister and his tracker, set off into the bush to find the cats and see if they had taken down the buffalo. We hadn't walked 400 metres when we heard to ominous noise of lions growling at us and not more than 30 metres away stood the lions growling at our unwelcome presence. Rifle cocked we slowly backed out and headed back to the car to get the guests. We then took the vehicles in for a bundu bash and followed them for a bit before retiring back to the lodge for breakfast.
This afternoons mission is finding a leopard, so I am off to read my book and relax before the next bit of madness begins!!
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