South Africa: A Lions Roar (Thursday 29Nov12)

I had an amazing day today. Derek (the owner of Dungbeetle Lodge) took me to Addo Elephant Park this morning where we saw a hyena kill by one of the water holes. At one point we watched a small herd of zebra chase the hyena away from the buffalo carcass like they were telling it off. There was also jackal nearby waiting to move in to steal a piece of meet and when we went back after we had had some breakfast we saw he had made his move. At one point Derek positioned the land rover so that a twelve or so elephants had to walk round it. We saw warthog, zebra, blesbok, hartebeest, ostrich and even a monitor lizard. Watching the elephants play in the water hole was one of the highlights for me too. They sprayed themselves and others with muddy water and it genuinely looked like the young ones were having fun. Addo is very different to Kruger as it has a lot more dense bush and thickets but we still did so well to see what we saw.

I didn't have long to get ready when I got back for my afternoon/evening game drive at Schotia Private Game Reserve which started at 3pm. My initial impressions weren't great but it was actually a really fantastic six hours. We saw a lot of antelope, including white blesbok, zebra, giraffe, rhino, hippo, black wildebeest, blue wildebeest and most importantly a pride of lions. Neiki, our guide let me sit in the trackers seat on the bonnet of the land rover for a bit of the drive and kept driving towards the bushes for a bit of a laugh. It was really good fun. We stopped and had a coffee break before going to find the lions who were just beginning to wake up when we got there. The male was huge with a big dark mane and there were quite a few cubs, the male one with just a small mane.

After spending about an hour watching the lions we went to the bush camp and had supper. I had springbok which I have to admit was lovely, followed by malva pudding. I got chatting to the girl next to me who was also travelling on her own and was from Switzerland. Once we starting talking the whole table joined in, a mixture of German, Swedish, Dutch with me being the only English person and everyone was talking in English which reminded me once again that I should really try and learn another language.

Back on the land rover we left camp to head back to the main gates. On our way we saw the pride of lions that had started their search for food. The lions all walked towards the land rovers and the male started to make his call, it was like a really deep belly grunt which I recorded on my camera. It's certainly a noise that I never want to forget, something only sounds so right in the bush. One of the male cubs walked right up next to the vehicle next to me and just started in. I'll never forget that evening for as long as I live. I had wanted to see a pride of lions together and I finally had. We left the lions to it and stopped off at the water hole where the hippo had been. One of them was on the verge grazing which completed the experience.