Ferrari Safari

The arrival of a big group to Sabi Sabi makes for careful planning of the game drive as the group generally goes for one of the cats and leaves us with not much opportunity to get into the sighting. Fortunately there were 2 different groups of lions on the property and only 4 vehicles were headed to the lions in the South. So to avoid traffic I headed down to the South where we saw some rhinos and a bull elephant have a confrontation and then were going to head in to see the lions.

Unfortunately they had decided to leave the property and were now no longer an option. I had one guests who was only there for 1 night so was under some pressure to perform and find some cats. The only other option was a leopard that had been found literally on the other side of the property...so off we went...FERRARI SAFARI... This is not my style of guiding but it was necessary...stopping for nothing short of another cat and slowing down only for bumps (sometimes)...leaving the guests with the feeling like they have just gone on a roller coaster.

Eventually we got to her and she was hunting a herd of impala. She had managed to get 20 metres from them and the excitement was mounting. The impala then started alarm calling but looking in the opposite direction to the leopard. It was a hyena that decided to test the herd of impala for any week lambs and managed to spoil the hunt completely. To add insult to injury the hyena then came over to the leopard and started harassing her, which invoked an intense series of hisses and growls. It was fantastic to see the interaction between these animals and even more interesting to see hoe the hyena just hung around the leopard. Hoping she would make a kill so that he could steal it from her.

Now late for dinner I was again in a hurry to get back to the lodge but was forced to drive at 10km/h by little scrub hares that refused to leave the road...this left the guests giggling and me frustrated but it was a fitting way for nature to tell me to SLOW DOWN.