Leopard Hills wrap up

On our last full day, our morning game drive started out with a great sighting. A pride of lion had stolen a kill from a leopard and was enjoying it on an open field. There were four lioness and two male lions. We pulled up to a lioness savoring the last few pieces of her share of the small impala. We could here her tearing into the bone and ripping off the meat. Another lioness had finished her snack and was slowly moving towards the lioness who was still eating. She gave the approaching lioness a low, rumbling growl, which made her lay down and wait. Another lioness and a male lion approached and they all waited for her to finish. She left nothing for the others. A few minutes later, we heard some roaring in the distance. It was the one male lion missing from the pride. All of the lions got up and started roaring back to him. It was VERY cool!

We left the lions to go find some giraffe. We searched for them for a looong time. Gary and Ronny got out on foot to look, and we finally found them...doing what they are always doing...eating. We also saw tons of rhinos with lots of babies. They are funny to watch, too. When you pull up to them, they just look up at you with grass hanging out of their mouths.

I´ve never thought of myself as a bird person, but there are a lot of beautiful birds in Africa. One of them is a weaver bird. Very small yellow bird. The males make nests, out of grass, that hang from tree branches. The goal is to impress a female with the nest, so that she will come lay her eggs there. It´s a lot of pressure, because if the female does not like the nest, she will tear it down and the male has to start all over again!

When we finished up our morning drive, Gary told us that he had a surprise for us that evening. We spent the afternoon resting up and it was so hot, I soaked in the plunge pool for a while.

Our evening game drive began with a drive to the far corner of the reserve. Gary had told us that there was a cheetah sighting. We spent about an hour trying to find her, but never did. There was a call on the radio that there was a leopard close to our lodge. It turns out that she is the leopard who was on our patio the day before. We got to her as the sun was going down and a storm was blowing in. The wind picked up, which is good for leopards. It makes it more difficult for the impala to smell or hear them. There were a few unsuspecting impala very close to her.

Less than a mile away from the leopard was a male and female lion. They were from the pride we had seen earlier. They were even closer to the impala, but didn´t seem interested. It got pretty dark and a huge lightening storm was overhead, so we were trying to take pictures of it (with the two lions right behind us). Eddie had been keeping his eyes on the lions and said "uh-oh, the big one is getting up." We backed up right next to them and much to our surprise (and discomfort), they mated. It lasted no more than 30 seconds. Not very impressive for the "king of the jungle". They went to sleep and we went in for dinner. This ended up being our last game drive as the morning drive was canceled due to the storm. Lions mating under a lightening storm is not a bad way to wrap things up.

Our bush plane couldn't fly in the storm, so we had to go by car to the airport, which was about 2 hours and fine by me!