After setting out on my guests’ first game drive ever, we came across some buffalo tracks. We followed them for about half an hour and found a big herd in the middle of the road heading straight towards us. It was a really special sighting; the whole herd, young, females and fully grown male bulls walked right passed us, giving my guests a chance to get some really good photos.

We watched two bulls fighting and the rest of the heard moving off for about half an hour. We decided to make our way out of the area and try and find some lion tracks. We looked for a long time and unfortunately were unable to find any.

We carried on searching and eventually had some luck. It was already after dark and tracking was nearly impossible but a big male lion started calling relatively close by. It is an amazing sound to hear (a real sound of Africa), and we made our way to where it was coming from.

When we arrived we found a massive male lion and a female. The male was calling in an attempt to get the female to mate. We stayed in the sighting for a while and had the chance to hear him calling from about 10 metres making the ground vibrate. Unfortunately the female was not quite ready and ignored his approaches.

We started making our way back to the lodge since we were already about 30 minutes late, and to our amazement, a massive male leopard walked across the road about 5 metres from the vehicle. We followed him in to the bush and watched how he was stalking and trying to catch an impala, then a warthog. His efforts were unsuccessful but it was amazing to be let in on the hunt.

It was an amazing drive something I hope my guests will remember as long as I will.

Michael – Kapama River Lodge
18/09/2012