About 4 days ago Mike found the lion pride again, as they were resting in a clearance. It looked like a happy family gathering, see for yourselves!

I must say, our male lion is turning into a very handsome boy, and a very huge boy as well. Already one of the largest lions I have ever seen, and as he is still growing (he is about 3-4 years old, so he still has 2 years of growth ahead of him), I reckon he will turn out a true show piece of a male lion in the end. He certainly looks very, very impressive now already, and I hope he will be with us for many, many years to come. His mane is turning into a distinct blond color, which gives away his Northern Cape lion ancestry (and which is also causing himn to be so unusually large, in my opinion).

Truth must be told: lions never look as large on photos as they really do when one sees them in real life. These cats are absolutely massive, and we reckon this lion is already approaching 400kg in weight. So you can imagine the size of this cat! (a normal house cat weighs only about 5kg or so).

What’s great is that one can observe these wonderful creatures up-close on our reserve, and we see our lions very regularly, so if you stay 5 nights at the Vuyani Safari Lodge, then we can quasi guarantee that you will see them at least once, most likely twice, when on an African safari here.

Enjoy the photos that Mike took 4 days ago! Great work!

 

Over the last 2 days the weather has been unusual, with over cast skies, but the same temperatures (about 18-26 degree Celsius). That’s very unusual for a late September/early October time, but now the weather is fine again. This was odd, because until Friday it was 26-28 degree Celsius every day during daytime (which is just perfect), with blue skies, but then this weekend was not as perfect. Well, maybe we are so blessed with great weather all the time that the odd two days when it is not that great it seems so unusual to us. In general, when it is overcast, and the winds pick up, there is less game to be seen, as animals feel exposed when the wind is blowing, giving away their locations to predators.

Still, Mike has seen lots of general game over the last two days with our guests, and amongst the many photos I received, I picked a beautiful herd of wildebest, and also a group of hippos. Hippos never fail to impress with their wild antics in the lake, their displays of dominance being a key part of their social behavior. That’s definitely always the highlight of any sundowner drinks near one of our many lakes (we have over 30 lakes on our huge reserve!)