In the morning we were off again really early. There was a bit of buzz going on the walkie talkies as all the guides where trying to track where the lions had gotten to the previous night...
There were spottings along the road side of 2 of the 3 lions, but the other one was nowhere to be seen. Kylie drove around looking for tracks and fresh poo.... Slowly slowly we drove, until suddenly out of the long grass popped lion no1.... oblivious to us he started walking down the road, turning to look every now then. Kyle said that they must of fed last night as he was looking a little more weighty this morning and he was panting, which meant he was ready for a big sleep. He was still looking for his other 2 mates so he decided to stop and let out an almighty roar.... All was quiet and then you could hear his brothers reply. The guides where busy on the walkie talkies and comparing sights...... Then suddenly our lion decided that he should sit and wait to see if they turn up.... so plonk in the middle of the road he sits.... We stop and wait for him to move. Sick of waiting he hops up and walks into the grass... damn we hoped that they would meet here.....
So off we go to see if we could spot the other 2 as they had also been reported wandering into the grass and the visual lost.....
We chose a track that we thought might be where they were heading.... so we drove and drove... then suddenly one pops out of the grass.... he walks a little.... then another pops out of grass... we have found the missing two....wow... we called it in...... then suddenly number 3 joins up and we have all three lions walking in front of us... how exciting is that...... We followed for a while then decided to let some of the other jeeps have a look so we drove off very chuffed...
Another mission for today were Zebra’s as we not seen those up close..... and suddenly bang, there they were ... and so close.......
“What do you want to see next” Kyle said..... jokingly I said to Kyle “ you are doing so well, I want to see a giraffe up close..... on the road if you can.” LOL...... we drove on.... and look, there are a journey of giraffes up head.... we drove a bit closer to get a good look and as we drove around the bend.... can you believe there on the road in front of us holding his ground and staring right at us was this huge giraffe...... Kyle you are my hero.....
After that we didn’t care what we saw as we were so excited about the morning already... so we stopped for coffee and laughed about our good fortune....
As elephants were a little hard to spot at the moment as they were all hanging out up at the north part of the park we decided to go to a lodge that offered a close elephant interaction.
We had no transport to get there so our lodge offered to drive us over in one of the jeeps.... it took a little longer and it was a little bumpy as we had to go through the park to get there.
At this lodge they have 2 African Elephants and each day they bring out and you get to interact with. Their story begins when they were just baby calves... there were actually 3 of them. It was many years ago where they needed to cull the amount of elephants in the area. The cullers though they had finished for the day when they came across these 3 small elephants. Deciding that they would deal with them in morning they carried on with their evening events... Whilst they cared for them through the night they became attached to them and decided not to shoot them... instead they took them into care.... eventually these animals became so use to the human interaction that when they tried to release them back into the wild the elephants started to misbehave as they longed for human contact again... one of the 3 cause so much havoc and damage, it had to be put down. But the other 2 Rachel and Rambo remain here and have produce a young calf of their own..
To satisfy their hunger for human interaction, each day you can book to go and listen to a short talk about the elephants and then you can feed them, and pet them. With Rambo they get you to put the food right onto his tongue so you can feel it... These elephants are huge and still not fully grown. They can tell when they are fully grown as they stop sleeping laying down... Once they have reached their final size they can no longer lift themselves off the ground. The elephants have a handler that stays with them all day and they become quite attached to. These handlers become part of the herd and the elephants will protect them from whatever danger arises.
After such a big day we found our evening safari a little quiet. This was the coldest night and the rain did not help as the animals were taking shelter and nowhere to be seen.
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