On one of our morning drives we wanted to drive in an area where there had been a lot of leopard activity. Unfortunately, as luck would have it, the male and female decided to part ways and only leave tracks for us to follow. That resulted in a full two and a half hours of unsuccessful tracking. As we accepted defeat we started heading back towards the lodge in disappointment.

For some reason we decided to drive a different road and suddenly ended up in an elephant herd. Since the elephants were completely relaxed we decided to sit for a while in silence and watch them. After a while, one of the very young, curious bulls approached the vehicle and slowly lifted his trunk towards Willis (the Tracker). A second time the youngster lifted his trunk and pointed towards Willis. Just as he got close, his mother called him back.

Soon after we left that special sighting we found some lion tracks heading into the bush. Since we had nothing to lose we decided to follow up and came upon our pride of thirteen lions all just lazily sleeping in the mid-morning sun.

Needless to say that this was one of the most special safaris I have ever been involved in and certainly the best ending to a very quiet start.

Jacques – Kapama River Lodge
19/08/2012