Yesterday afternoons drive was spent looking for the lions down in the south. Unfortunately with tracks only from the night before we had no choice but to wait till things cooled down and hopefully find them when they started moving again.
On route to the area where the lions had last been seen we bumped into an elephant bull in musth and he was not so happy to see us. We had to maintain a healthy distance from him in order for him to relax and continue with his feeding. He was not the last elephant that we would see as we found a huge male who looked like he had had an interesting life. He had no tail, rips in his ear and the tip of his trunk was missing, but in spite of all his experiences he was as relaxed as can be. He was feeding no more than 6 metres from us and didnt even bat an eyelid to our presence.
Unfortunately we had no further luck with the lions and had to go home satisfied that we had tried everything to find them.
The morning started well when we bumped into a male and female rhino and while watching them, Arthur called in that he had a lioness with cubs very close to where we were. I sped off after calling myself in hoping that she wouldn't take the cubs into thick bush before we got there. This female has just had the cubs and this is only the second time they have been seen. At 4 weeks old they are still being carried from place to place by the mother. When we arrived she was in the process of coaxing the one cub out of a thicket, then she picked it up in her jaws with the delicacy of a surgeon and started to move the cub. Arthur and I came to a decision that as amazing as this sighting was we would have to close it to all other vehicles and leave ourselves as the cubs were still to small and the stress that the vehicles would have on them and the mother was not worth it. I had time to squeeze off a few photos and we left her to move the little ones to the next den site! WHAT A TREAT!
We were then inundated with animals when we found impala, wildebeest, four rhino, a herd of elephant with tiny babies and a herd of male buffalo all in the same open area. One of the little baby elephants was so inquisitive it kept coming up to the vehicle to investigate. At one stage he was no more than a metre from us and we all just giggled as he tried to get us to join in him in his game of throwing around bushes. I am sure he was thinking... 'when mom does this it has much more impact, wonder what I am doing wrong...'
All in all a magnificent morning and we were truly blessed to see the new cubs. That must go down as one of the most amazing things I have ever seen since I started guiding!
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