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Published: October 1st 2023
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We were woken at 5.00am by our early morning alarm call from Graeme. At 5.15 we were on parade at the lodge, with a cup of coffee to fortify us before setting off on our first morning game drive. The sun was just rising and the light was beautiful. It was already warm, with temperatures forecast to hit 41C by the afternoon – an astonishing change from the rest of our holiday. We stopped to watch some giraffe sitting down and eating. They cannot digest food in their stomach, so they swallow it while feeding then , once at rest, regurgitate it back up to chew more thoroughly. We watched balls of food travelling up and down their throats. We saw a leopard tortoise. Trivia quiz – how do you tell if a tortoise is male or female? Answer, the males have concave undershells to make it easier for them to mount females when mating!
Graeme’s aim was to find a lioness with her cubs that had been seen the day before, and he succeeded. We drew up alongside only two other vehicles and watched as the cubs played boisterously with each other and their mum. Eventually they moved off
into the undergrowth, but were able to track them for a distance down the track. The lioness headed into some deeper scrub and we suddenly heard blood curdling screaming. ‘She’s caught a warthog’ said Graeme. Sadly, she did not finish the poor pig off quickly. We heard its pitiful cries and screams for a good 20 minutes, getting progressively weaker. Graeme said that lions like to play and she was playing with it; instead of going for the throat to suffocate it as lions usually do on a kill, she had likely disabled it by ripping it open or biting some chunks out of it, probably resulting in it dying from blood loss or shock. Nature can be cruel.
As the lioness was clearly not going to bring her kill out from the bushes, we moved on. To our delight, we found two white rhinos, each with a calf, grazing peacefully next to some wildebeest. It was a privilege to sit and watch these primeval looking creatures from such a short distance.
Scroll down for more photos.
We returned to the lodge for breakfast and a much needed few hours off to download and start to edit
photos. As the temperature was into the mid 30s we retired indoors rather than develop heatstroke before the next drive. At 4pm it was time to head back out. We set off in search of elephants, driving up into the hills on the perimeter of the Manyoni reserve. They had not been sighted for several days and sadly today was not the day either. We were, however, lucky enough to see two more white rhino which were literally standing by the side of the road, 20 feet away. We saw them as we were on our way to look for cheetahs. A mother and her three sub adults had been sighted, so we sped off – insofar as a vehicle can speed along rough dirt tracks – in search. Eventually we saw some other vehicles a distance away. As only three vehicles are allowed near an animal at any one time, we had to wait our turn. As it had been such a hot day they were lying in the grass panting heavily and were virtually invisible even though we were no more than 40 feet away from them. We could only see them when they raised their heads, and
even then had to concentrate hard to keep them in sight. Cheetahs are constantly vigilant but extremely wary as they are at the bottom of the predator food chain, and are likely to be killed by a leopard or lion if they encounter one. We better understood why Graeme said you could easily drive past without seeing them. We were willing them to stand up, but sadly they chose not to and as the light was now fading rapidly, we had to give up and head back to the lodge.
It was still very warm as we sat out for dinner, but the wind had whipped up, blowing embers from the fire all over the place. The paraffin lamp on our table blew out at least four times, making it very hard to eat in virtual darkness.
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