I spent a few days at the Vuyani Safari Lodge last week, and was able to go out on a safari game drive with Mike and Uyai.

Usually I am VERY unlucky when it comes to safaris. The norm is that if I am on the game driver, then the sightings are sparse, if not non-existent.

Not this time though!

Uyai and Mike were tracking the lions, whose tracks they had seen on the morning drive already, so they knew broadly where they were. Uyai spotted fresh tracks all of a sudden, so Mike and Uyai decided to walk off into the bush to take a close look at where they had gone. After about 5 minutes all our guests (and myself) saw them reappear from behind the bush, looking very happy (and with a definite spring in their steps).

Turns out that Mike and Uyai had walked right into the lions, and got an angry growl from the male lion when Uyai noticed that he was only 5m away from him. I would have died of a heart attack right there and then!! But Uyai kept his usual cool, and did the right thing. He stopped for a while, and then backed off slowly (ask him though how he battled off an attacking leopard by kicking him in the bum while the leopard was trying to drag his boss out of the car from the window … this guy has real courage!)

We then proceeded to approach the lions in the game drive vehicle, and after about 10 minutes of careful manoeuvring, we suddenly spotted the massive male lion resting in the shade of a bush. The yellow/grey coloration of the bush had made it impossible to spot the lion from further than a few yards, and we suddenly noticed how close Uyai had gotten just a few minutes earlier.

The lions were slowly starting to get ready for the upcoming night hunt. After about an hour of observing them we decided to call it a day and headed back to the lodge. This was without a doubt the best lion sighting I had ever experienced. The male lion has also grown to the largest lion I have ever seen, and he has two more years of growth in him. Impressive!