Day: August 9, 2011

One pleasant morning, after we picked up our new guests Sandy and Katy from the airport, we saw a baby giraffe just through the Main Gate of the Reserve. The little guy was probably only a few months old and as he stood there looking very confused and dazed, we had a look around but could not see his mother anywhere nearby. Although, he was frightened, his natural instincts kept him in the same spot to wait for his mother to return. Later that day, we spotted a large, female giraffe standing high up on a termite mound. We figured it was the mother looking for her little one.
The next day Erich and the guests spotted the two giraffes together. Mother and baby were re- united again and could go on with their daily lives doing what giraffes do best, eating!
It was an awesome example of how nature ran its course.

Arran and Erich

On the 31st July we set out for our afternoon drive in windy conditions. We weren’t expecting to see much because of the blustery weather, but we were very wrong. We knew that for the last few days the lions had been in the area and we even heard them roar on the previous night safari. About 30 minutes into the drive we found some fresh, male lion tracks leading us into the old cotton fields. We also found relatively fresh female lion tracks leaving the old cotton fields, but we knew the males must still be in the area as we did not see any of their tracks leaving.
We would have to wait until nightfall if we wanted to see them, so we left and found a nice open area to enjoy our sundowners and watch the sunset. We finished our drinks, and then made our way back in the direction of the cotton fields, hoping to catch a glimpse of the elusive lions. As we were moving the spotlight from side to side, looking for them we saw two teddy bear like ears peeking over a small embankment. We knew they were the unmistakable ears of a lion. We had to go off road a bit in their direction trying to make as little noise as possible without scaring them off. They were actually very relaxed and just lay there watching us. We stopped a few meters from the three males lying there next to each other with their bellies very full. We sat there and just watched them sleeping and interacting with each other. They eventually moved off after about half an hour, when they had had enough of us. What a wonderful ending to a night safari.

Arran and Warren