WE’RE GOIN’ ON A LION HUNT
After breakfast we set off for our first game drive of the day, stopping to photograph giraffes about 10 metres from our truck, herds of zebras and elephants by the road and different waterholes. We saw leopard tracks (we were told they were only about an hour old) but didn’t see the leopard.
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| A Snake Eagle |
About two hours into the drive we had to stop as some bolt connected with the clutch broke (way too technical for me!) and it took about half an hour to do a running repair then drive back to the lodge in second gear, not stopping for anything. A large bull elephant crossed the road ahead of us with Cosmos, our driver, making frantic hand gestures trying to hurry it up. Fortunately it made it across before we reached it. The photo below shows just how close it was to us – this was taken at 70mm with no vertical cropping.
Back at the lodge, I opted out of the afternoon drive and decided to just relax around the grounds. After so many long days on the truck, it was really nice to just read, wander out to the watering hole to take some photos, catch up on washing, etc.
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| Hornbill |
When the others returned about 5.30pm, we met up for drinks and nibbles on the verandah of the rondavel next door to mine when suddenly Innocent appeared with breaking news – we’re going after lions which had just been spotted about 15 minutes away. Off we went, speeding past giraffes about 5 metres from the road, no longer photo worthy! As we went Rose sang a song they sing at the school where she works – ‘We’re goin’ on a lion hunt’. We came across four vehicles parked by the roadside so pulled up near them and found seven lions sleeping under a tree. For about 20 minutes they just laid there so some vehicles took off – but we waited and suddenly the first one stretched, got up and slowly headed out. Over the next 10 minutes the others slowly followed.
By this time it was about 6.50 pm so we had to speed back to the compound as the gates are locked at 7pm – although we did notice some jackals had made it into the grounds last night and were wandering around.
The sun had set by the time we reached our accommodation but the sky still had a beautiful glow and there were animals at the watering hole so I went down with my camera.
I then went out again about 9.30 pm but there was not much happening, some birds and a few jackals. After about half an hour the jackals took off and two black rhinos came in – a mother and its young. Not long after a black male rhino also came in to drink. A couple of very apprehensive giraffes stood off to one side for quite some time and then decided to risk it and approached the waterhole. Nothing happened and all five animals drank from various spots around the hole. When the two smaller rhinos departed I called it a night. At least my tripod finally made it out of its bag!
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| Waterhole spotlight - no camera flash used |
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