Max stayed with us in November, for a 6-night stay, with a friend. They were spending 3 weeks in South Africa, and the safari portion of their stay with us was the key part of their trip.

Max also left a great review on Tripadvisor, and one can see why: they saw incredible amounts of animals, right across the board, and they enjoyed the food and hospitality to the maximum. Here the link to the review: Max Sinclair review

Max also emailed in some of his most beautiful shots, which he was happy for me to share with all our fans. Many thanks!

Without any further ado, please see below the photos!

Uyai joined the Vuyani Safari Lodge about half a year ago, as a tracker. He may be relatively new at the lodge, but his tracking experience goes back many years on this reserve. In fact he was tracking leopards here long before even I had ever heard of this place. I am convinced that noone knows this large 36,000 acre conservancy better than him. He claims he can “smell” animals and “feel” them before tracking them, and to judge by is abilities to find game, one is somehow inclined to believing him.

He certainly knows the routines and habits of our large and small animals very well, and since he has joined, our sighting numbers, as well as quality, is off the chart. We see big game now on a quasi daily basis, and also many smaller animals.

Uyai is originally from Zimbabwe, and he left for South Africa many years ago, as one cannot find decent work anymore in Zimbabwe. He has many great stories about his childhood in Zimbabwe, and also life in South Africa, where he worked as a hunting tracker for many years as well. So he knows his stuff!

Ask Uyai to tell you the story when his boss was attacked by a leopard, and he single-handedly saved him. After that story, you will know you are in very safe hands with Uyai.

See below a photo that a guest took of Uyai, sitting on his tracker seat on the front of the Landcruiser, nearby the lions that he had found lazing about in the plains of the reserve. First panorama shot on this blog ever!

 

I only started writing regular safari blog updates earlier this year, and, I can’t believe it myself, I have already reached the 100th story! Well, I have thoroughly enjoyed writing these stories, and so expect many more to be posted in the course of next year! Promised!

So, what’s the good news of today? Rhinos!

One of my most favorite animals of all, the rhinos really bring on the smiles for everyone when we find them in the lush bush these days. They are doing well, and the baby rhinos are coming.

It is very difficult to imagine the sheer size of these animals, unless one sees them up-close from a game driver. These animals can easily exceed 2 tons in weight, and especially the males have an incredibly imposing size! They are not to be messed with: when angry, they charge, and they take no prisoners.

Mike fund the rhinos on an open field yesterday, and they were happily grazing away on some of the fresh grass that’s sprung up everywhere, now that the rainy season has re-ignited nature all over.

Zebras were just next to them, and that is a little odd. Zebras usually travel with blue wildebeest, and not rhinos typically. Maybe these rhinos are very tolerant and docile-minded. Or maybe it was just coincidence, but I have never seen them so close together.

If you want to see a huge white rhino upfront, then there is nothing better than a safari here at the Vuyani Safari Lodge! And given that there are only about 4000-5000 white rhinos left in the world, it is a true privilege.

Enjoy the photos. Many thanks to Mike!

 

Mike just sent in photos of the lions he saw yesterday, and I must say, these are one hell of a relaxed and happy bunch of lions. Lack of food is never really an issue they battle with, as the reserve is very rich in game, and as the only pride of lions, they rule unopposed. Now that the rainy season has begun, and nature and wildlife are back in full swing, the menu is even longer and tastier (think: veal!)

So it doesn’t come as a surprise that the lions don’t seem stressed whatsoever and indeed in between meals they do what all lions really love doing: strictly nothing at all!

And that’s what that looks like:

Excellent news also on the elephant front!

The elephant herd spent most of its time in the dry season on the Blauwbank portion of the 36,000 acre reserve, which is quite far away from the lodge, so we didn’t see them too often. Well, they have crossed back into the Moria portion of the reserve, and Mike found them the same day. The baby elephants are growing up, and I am sure a couple of newborns may well follow later in the new year. Fingers crossed!

 

Lions and cheetahs rest most of the day.

In fact lions sleep up to 22 hours out of 24! And cheetahs, due to their very specific muscular development, allowing them to sprint up to 110km/h, also means that their muscles need sometimes hours to fully recover after such a sprint. Endurance is not their forte at all.

So for both lions and cheetahs, preying on game is the most important portion of their hunting. Once hungry, cheetahs and lions will move around slowly, observe the wildlife around them, trying to evaluate any opportunities. A classic technique is to approach an unsuspecting target, wind blowing away from the target (masking the smell of the predator, and also reducing any noise alert), in high grass, trying to get as close to the target as possible without being seen.

Cats, due to their claws, and also muscular make-up achieve breakneck acceleration, so the surprise element is key. Impalas, for instance, achieve unbelievable speeds as well, and can sustain these speeds for much longer than any lion and especially cheetah, but it takes them several seconds longer to accelerate to this speed due to the lower grip of their hoof-like feet. It is this window of opportunity that lions and cheetahs use to take down a victim before it even gets really going. Tactics and technique is everything, and cats learn throughout life. As they age, their kill success rates increase, especially if an experienced pride works together as a team.

Our cheetahs love hunting in the near vicinity of rivers. River beds give them the needed straight surface to accelerate, while the thick bush next to the river bed is perfect for camouflage. We even had a cheetah kill right next to one of our honeymoon suites a few weeks back, as the lodge is near the river bed. Our lion pride loves the open spaces, of which there are many on our reserves. They observe wildlife from the thick bush on the edges of these open spaces, and tend to take down their preys on these plains. Their preferred targets are impala, wildebeest, and kudu, but they also took down a giraffe at least once, so they have courage!

Here a couple of photos of a cheetah and a lioness out on a hunt, seen 2 days ago, and photographed by Mike.

 

 

A couple of days ago, during an evening safari, Jay-Dee and Uyai found a leopard roaming his territory, busy marking it. It was a male leopard, of course, and he was very relaxed. It is unusual to observe such an elusive animal, but this time our guests got 40 minutes up-close time with him, which is incredible. Well done!

We start having leopard sightings more regularly, but of course lion and cheetah sightings have become extremely frequent, sometimes on a daily basis. So it was a real treat to see a leopard on our reserve, for a change. Not that they are rare here, there are several dozens of them, according to recent research, and their numbers are increasing, as there is plenty of plains game to feed on!

The next morning, on a morning game drive, we “missed” a blue wildebeest kill (of course it was the lions who made the kill, not the blue wildebeest), by a whisker, maybe by as little as 20 minutes. Still, it was amazing to observe these big cats feasting on a fresh kill. Gory it is, yes, but nonetheless, this is as real as you can observe wildlife, and that’s what safaris here at the Vuyani Safari Lodge are all about. Our wildlife here on the reserve is completely wild and self-reliant, and that’s what real conservation is all about.

Many thanks to Daisy and Alex for the beautiful shots, they are truly stunning! What sightings …. incredible …

I woke up to very sad news: the passing of Nelson Mandela.

We knew he was unwell for almost a year, and so it didn’t come as a surprise, but it doesn’t change anything. South Africa is a poorer nation now.

Nelson Mandela was a great man, for one reason mainly: he overcame bitterness and anger, all too human traits, and totally understandable ones in light of what had been done to him, and yet he chose to forgive, even those who had been at the very heart of the apartheid regime. He wasn’t perfect, he wasn’t a saint, and many mistakes were done while in government. But he acknowledged them often, and often publicly wished things were done better than they were. It is this humility that made him tangibly human, and it is this humility that has totally left the current top of the ANC, which will make Mandela be missed all the more in the future. I still hope that the future of South Africa will be what the Madiba would have liked to see: a true Rainbow Nation, where race is irrelevant, and where all South Africans have equal chances and opportunities in life.

Rest in peace, Madiba!

 

4 days ago (God, I wish I had not skipped this game drive!!), Mike and Uyai found the cheetahs in an area that we call the “cotton fields”, on a fresh kill they had made moments before. Their kill was a young born wildebeest. Survival chances of baby wildebeest are not the highest, and one can see why. In this season, as they are just days or weeks old, they are still quite slow, and with the lack of experience, they are easy prey for predators such as cheetah, lions and leopards.

As the cheetahs were enjoying their lunch, a group (in English the proper term is “journey”) of giraffes approached the cheetahs, to take a look at the goings-on. Giraffes are known to display a lot of curiosity, and sometimes this works against them as they should rather keep out of business that isn’t theirs.

The cheetahs were not very amused, and made sure that the giraffes chose very quickly to make a run for it, and leave the premises.

Cheetahs are not dangerous to giraffes, as cheetahs are far too small to take down a giraffe, but nonetheless, the giraffes chose not to test theory either.

Both cheethas proceeded to finish their meal and moved off to new hunting grounds, making sure not to attract competing carnivores (lions or hyenas for instance) eager on snatching their kill. It is such a delight to watch these incredibly rare animals being successfully hunting. One of the female cheetahs has now chased off her cubs as they have fully grown up now, and are successfully hunting on their own. She has been seen with a couple of make cheetahs, so we are optimistic about her having new babies some time soon in the future.

Female cheetahs seek out make cheetahs for mating, but as soon as they realise they are pregnant (and they do very quickly due to hormonal changes), they become very hostile to male cheetahs and chase them off in a very aggressive manner. Male cheetahs will always make sure to stay far away from a pregnant cheetah female.

 

 

I was out myself on the reserve three days ago, being very excited. It had been a long while, and I must admit that I do not go out on game drives nearly as often as I wish. Well, this one was going to make up for it, especially as we have great sightings these days on quasi every game drive.

Chance (or bad luck) would have it, that it started raning about 30 minutes into the game drive. But our guests were unfazed, and determined. The ponchos came out, and the safari continued. And it was well worth it!

We found all 4 lionesses, resting under a bush, trying to shelter from the rain, and dodging the lightnings and the thunder. The weather conditions made the sighting all the more dramatic!

We are trying to get the lions used to seeing Uyai, our ranger, on the tracker’s seat in front of the game driver, they are still uneasy about it, but they are better already now.

We got within 8-10 yards of them, and I succeeded at capturing some beautiful footage of these 4 lionesses. See below and enjoy!