Golden rules...




Our first 5 hour game drive this morning starting at 6am, had to plan the fluid intake very carefully as I didn't want to have to ask Anton for a bush break! I would guess he would have to escort me to a suitably safe spot and stand guard, think I would rather be dehydrated, thanks all the same!


We came across the South Pride brother & sister again and they were still mating! 

The look of love

One of the golden rules of game viewing is not to break the outline of the vehicle. The animal can see a large object (the vehicle) and usually gets used to it and realises its nothing interesting but if a person in the vehicle were to stand up or move around, the animal would see it was something smaller and individual and might see it either as a threat, or a snack. I was sat at the back, on the outside and was trying to get my camera out of its case and get the strap around my neck and in doing so lifted my arm up, ... and broke the outline of the vehicle! And boy did the lioness notice! They had been calmly lolling about until this point where she immediately locked eyes on me and moved up to a stalking-crouch position and took a few steps closer. Anton said in his calm voice 'watch out at the back there' as my bowels loosened ever so slightly (one for my soon-to-be brother in law there). Thankfully she soon lost interest and went back to lolling.

Erm, is she looking at me?!

We hung around for a bit but it just seemed rude to keep watching and once a Thanda main vehicle arrived (complete with 2 very posh rich-looking looking older women, one of whom dropped her lens cap outside the vehicle and I swear she was going to try and pick it up until her driver said not to! The lions were very interested by all of this!) we decided to move on.




We tracked the ellies for ages but couldn't find them, we even drove to the top of a hill and got out to stretch our legs and have a good binoc around to see if we could spot them. And we did yay! Quite a way in the distance and in terrain that our vehicle couldn't easily get to, so we decided to try and get closer to a rhino that we had also spotted in the distance. By the time we had driven round to where the rhino had been, it had of course moved on. Anton decided the best plan was to find a nice spot and just sit and wait for the ellies. Golden rule no 2 of game viewing, patience is a virtue. We sat for what seemed like ages in the blazing heat (well, partly shaded by an acacia, but have you ever seen an acacia??) but in reality was probably only 20-30 mins, having some snacks and a snooze, being entertained by a lovely journey of about 11 giraffe (that's what you call a bunch of giraffe on the move) while we waited.

More of a tangle than a journey

We could hear the ellies before we saw them, snapping branches as they munched their way towards us. And then they all came wandering out, slowly making their way around our vehicle, looking at us but not really caring that we were there.

And then there were ellies

Just another day in the bush.