It’s another beautiful morning and we set off early before 6am. Initially there is not much stirring, even the birds seem subdued, but as the sun rises the bush starts to wake up. Birds appear and warthogs strut jauntily through the tall grass, tails held high.

We found tracks of wild dogs chasing an impala and set out to try and find them. In so doing we also found lion tracks. However, the bush was really dense and we have no success. We decide to go back to the impala killed by the branch yesterday. There is absolutely no sign of the impala at all, but there are vultures in the trees overhead and jackals hanging around so something has eaten it.

Then Mayezi & KB get out of the vehicle and try to ascertain what has happened. Initially they thought it might have been a leopard but there were no drag marks. Eventually they find the spoor of two lions and after circling the site pick up the tracks again and find the remains of the impala. Pretty much everything has gone apart from the shin bone, hoof and skull. A young jackal was hanging around and came right up to the vehicle while the guide & tracker were looking at footprints. I got the best shots and he had the whitest teeth!

Just as we drove off we found a kingfisher sitting in the road. It looked injured. Mayezi picked it up and put it on a log. It was very beautiful. On the other side of the road I spotted a cute dwarf mongoose.

In the afternoon we drive over the grasslands. We see wart hogs and stop by a hippo pool try and capture a pied kingfisher in flight. Absolutely no success – it refused to leave its perch.

We see ostriches, kudu and a jackal. A herd of elephants are coming up to drink so we stop and let them pass. We go down to the big pool for sundowners and a huge flock of pratincoles(similar to sandpipers) are sweeping and swarming through the air and loads of other water birds too.

The sky grows very dark with lightning in the distance and we think we’re going to get very wet again but somehow it passes us by. We drive back to camp for a quick change of clothing and dinner before going on a proper night drive.

We then head out on the night drive which is very successful. Almost immediately we see a hyena and then we spot a lioness. We follow her along the track and she enters hunting mode. We stop the vehicle and turn all the lights off so as not to disturb the hunt. We then hear the male lions calling and they eventually join her. There are three of them. This is so outside my comfort zone. Sitting in an open vehicle in the pitch dark, knowing that four lions are in very close proximity certainly heightens your senses! The lioness approaches one of the males and then runs for it. She is seriously unimpressed and he chases after her at break-neck speed. We start up the vehicle and race down the track hoping that we can get ahead of them. We veer off the road and park , once again turning off all lights. We sit and wait and listen. Suddenly – BANG!! The lioness has run smack into the front of our vehicle which is violently jolted. In that split second a lot of thoughts go through your head. Mainly focussed on how pissed off the lioness is going to be and what will be her reaction. The reality was that she was much more concerned about the male lion and picked herself up, glared at us, then ran off into the bush. We continued to track them for the best part of two hours and they finally ended up on the old airstrip. This was very funny because the military were camping there and they were in the open round a small fire. When we told him that the lions were approaching they didn’t initially believe us until they actually saw them. They grabbed their AK47s and took cover very swiftly! The male lions then proceeded to lie down on the runway 20 yards away from them and roar as loudly as possible. They could well be there all night so I guess those guys were going to have a very, very interesting evening. We watched for a while but nothing else was likely to happen and by this stage it was 11 o’clock, so we headed back to camp. We saw 2 springhares and a serval on the way back so all in all a very successful evening. I have some great video of the whole episode which I will be posting eventually.