Johannesburg Lion Park

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After a late night out was picked up from my tour guide at the hotel to go to the Lion Park which is situated in Gauteng Province about an hour away. Picked up another family with a couple of kids and were one of the first visitors to arrive at the park that morning. The park stretches over 500 acres and is home to more than 70 lions. It is also home to many other wildlife such as ostriches, zebras, wildebeest, cheetahs, coyotes, springboks and giraffes.

We drove off through the park, the land stretching out as far as the eye could see, trying to see if we could spot any of these animals. We first encountered an ostrich, next we passed a couple of grazing zebras. It always amazes me that each zebra has its own distinct markings. We drove past a coyote enclosure, they looked rather evil with their piercing yellow eyes. Beside them was the cheetah enclosure, which contained only a couple of cheetahs enjoying their bask in the morning sun.

Then we drove through the lion pride camps. There were four main drive through camps where you could watch each lion pride from the safety of the vehicle. It was truly an amazing experience to get so up close with these magnificent creatures. I was to learn that each pride usually consists of only one or two males who are usually closely related and that the lionessess are the ones that do all the hunting while the male lions sit back and relax! (that'd be right!).

As we were the first visitors to get there we were lucky enough to see the keepers letting the lions out from their overnight enclosure. As soon as the gates were open they started running out straight for us. They looked like they had just woken up but relieved to be out, where they would have some very big cat stretches and sharpen up their claws.

The fourth camp was a white lion pride. Apparently there are only about 200 remaining white lions in the world, 16 of them including a couple of cubs live out at this lion park. It was amazing to see these "snow lions" who were first discovered in the wild only 30 years ago.

We then went to Cub World which was made up of a couple of decent sized enclosures containing about 8 cubs including a couple of the white lion cubs. They were so cute!!! They hardly looked real with their fluffy coats, you could have easily mistaken one for a stuffed toy. We had the opportunity to pat them, i was surprised at how affectionate they were but they wouldn't play for long before having to have a sleep. I guess being a nocturnal animal they had probably been awake for most of the night.

Beside them were a few baby tigers. They were absolutely mad, running around playing with each other. One of the keepers went in to see them and these 3 cubs wouldn't leave her alone, they latched themselves around her legs so she couldn't walk. They were very playful except i guess they didn't realise how sharp their teeth and claws were, the poor keeper was constantly trying to calm them down and keep them away from chewing her toes!

This brought the tour to an end, before heading back to the hotel. After having some lunch and going over to the shops to buy some south african wine, it was time to head home.

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Comments

[Garry]

Hi love Really good photos! Looks typical of you to be patting the cubs.