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DBabyLions
Me with a couple of the baby lionsI left you all last in Bulawayo and we were just heading to Gweru to Antelope Park to see the Lion breeding center in the park. We got there by local combi which was no problem. Quite a few of the passengers were drinking lion lager on the way, but the driver wasn't as far as I could tell. We arrived in Gweru and waited at a local hotel for the pickup to take us to the park. The site was very beautiful - with little huts on the side of a river. Just a few hours after arriving I spotted some large cats being walked around the buildings and on closer inspection they turned out to be four 2 month old lions. We got to play with them the next lunchtime for half an hour which was great fun. They were just like playful kittens but much much bigger with sharper teeth and claws. In the afternoon we took a walk around the park hoping to see the Giraffe and maybe some bucks. After walking for a few minutes we saw a couple of Elephants grazing across a small river. We found way across the river and walked right up
DLion
Me with a bigger Lion to the Elephant who were near a cage with four 5 month old lions in. Actually we walked towards the Elephants for a way until we got near the cage and then one of them walked right up to me. Kristen kept her distance and I was quite releived when it stopped just in front of me. There was no-one else in sight and it was quite exhilerating to be so close to an Elephant without a handler. As it lifted its trunk up to sniff me I was quite aware that the long snot covered nose could be quite dangerous if it wanted. WE knew the Elephants were used by the park for riding rather than being wild elephants, but we knew nothing more... The elephant then decided to walk right through where I was standing so I had to move aside sharpish. We stood and watched for a while more - Kristen looked like she was really freaking out inside, but I'm not sure she admits that... then a black dude arrived and said hi. I'm wondering if he was watching the elephants or us. We walked on through the park and up at the owners house there
kcubs
Kristen with the cubs were many cages full of lions of all ages and sizes. It was cool to see if a little sad to see them caged. The project is pretty necessary I think because many of the lions in the wild have FIV - a cat version of aids - Feline Immunodeficiency Virus and apparently free condoms are hard to get in lion sizes.
The next day we had our "walk with the lions" scheduled and we went out with two of the staff and three 7 month old lions. We had small sticks - I would have prefered a larger one in hindsight - to discourage them from clawing us or biting too hard by hitting them on the nose. The three lions spent most of the time playing like kittens, but with a much more dangerous edge. At one point I had a lion run up to me and grab both legs of my pants (trousers in english) and I grabbed them both and tried to extract the claws (not from as far in as my legs luckily). This discouraged me a little from more serious playing, which was a shame. It seemed that you could play, but the lion
KLion
Kristen with a medium size Lion wouldn't really know where the boundary was in terms of when it would hurt the human. We contented ourselves with watching them play with each other mostly and Kristen taking a few photos.
There is a story about the man who runs the place. One day he came home and went to pet his favorite Lion who was in a large wire enclosure. During the day someone had been doing some work in the enclosures and the favorite Lion was in a different enclosure now. The Lion in the enclosure that the man was trying to pet took a liking to his arm, and now the man doesn't have it anymore... dangerous work sometimes.
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Cara
non-member comment
Fantastic Place
Hello, I visited Antelope Park a couple of years ago. It was the first place in Africa I went to and is still the best!!! I got to bottle feed one of the cubs and went walking with three 14 month old lions (just about big enough to start picking off the old and infirm visitors). I also went on an elephant ride where the elephants ran into the lake and swam for ages. Also a fantastic and unforgettable experience! Really glad to see your website as it would be a shame for people to stop visiting this park because of the Zimbabwean politics - particularly as the 4 weeks I spent in Zimbabwe I saw no trouble whatsoever! Enjoy the rest of your travels if you're still out there, Cara.