White rhino calf

Last night we had a huge storm, I have forgotten just how dramatic African storms can be - thunder and lightning that went on for hours. I was too nervous to go for a bath as the bath is set in a bay window with a huge glass pane and the lightning was right outside the window, so instead I had a quick shower. By the time I got to bed the wifi had gone and then the power went.

This morning when we woke up at 5am there was no power and still no wifi. We got dressed quickly and met up at 5.15am. This lodge only has 12 guests so there are 6 guests per vehicle for the game drives. This morning, as some guests had left, it was only Gavin and I on the vehicle, with the tracker and our ranger. We had planned to drive north to see the sand forest, but as we left the lodge the tracker found fresh female leopard spoors. Rain is not great for animal sightings as the animals tend to hide, but it is good in that they need to remark their territories so after a heavy storm like last night they would be active this morning doing just that. We decided to track the leopard prints, and it was rather exciting watching the tracker at work. We followed the tracks some distance until we realised the leopard was in a thicket of vegetation, so the tracker got out the vehicle and walked to find the leopard. Apparently leopard very rarely attack, as long as they have food and are not sick they will never attack a human.  We tracked the leopard for about 2.5 hours but could not see her.

While we were tracking we drove along many narrow tracks, and going down a very muddy and narrow section that was surrounded by dense vegetation we noticed a burrow - we stopped to look at it and suddenly a family of warthogs came shooting out of the burrow, parents and babies, and they all ran off. We were still surprised at seeing these warthogs when we looked up on the bank above us and saw a huge male leopard was watching us - this was not the female we had been tracking. Apparently the male leopards here are very skittish and you seldom see them. I quickly grabbed a shot of him, although there was too much vegetation in the way, and within a minute he was gone. We drove around to try and find him again but had no luck. It was such a thrilling experience as it took us completely by surprise. We think he had been waiting for the warthogs to come out to hunt them, and when we disturbed the warthogs we surprised him.

After lunch we went out on another game drive. The plan was to find rhinos, which we did, and then a call came on the radio about lions being sighted. We went to the location and saw four lions, but they were half hidden behind the vegetation so photos were difficult. We waited for them to come out of the thicket but instead they walked deeper in to it. The vegetation here is beautiful, but it often does obscure the animals so it is not easy to get a clear photo.

We then went to see rhinos, and even found the cheetah siblings we saw yesterday lying right next to some rhinos. We were also thrilled to find a 2m python, it was huge! We stopped at a watering hole for sundowners where we had a musical accompaniment from singing frogs. 

Then it was our last supper - the food has been outstanding, the chef always made special gluten free biscuits and cakes for me for the tea times, and I will definitely need to get running again rather soon!

Tomorrow morning after the game drive and then breakfast we are leaving to drive to the mountains where we are spending a few days with my family. We have really enjoyed our safari experience, I wish I could do this more often as I so love to see animals and nature in the wild.