Pussy Galore and so much more - Day 310
What a day! Various titles came to mind - Blue Movies? Come out and see us some time? And finally Pussy Galore and so much more.
It was dark outside when we left the lodge, just before sunrise, and as our merry band of 10 was driven a few miles south by our faithful guide Chris, the sun gently appeared, lighting up the sky. We were introduced to our new Guide Walter, known as Wally. A jolly relaxed guy with a wonderful smile. We climbed into his jeep open to the elements, no sides or top to protect us, and off we went into the Park. We drove around for a bit, through an area that had been managed with fire to force new growth. The charred black timber and burnt amber leaves gave an eerie quality. Wally kept stopping, looking for tracks. We came across some Rhinos, but that wasn’t what we were looking for. Eventually, Wally received a call on his radio giving him the information he needed. He steered down the bumpy track, curved around left and there, lying near the edge of a waterhole was what we had come to see: three lions, two males and a female. We parked up, keeping quiet and couldn’t believe how close we were to them. Remember, there was no barrier between us and them. We were relying just on Wally putting his foot down on the accelerator to get us away if need be. The lions raised their heads, looked at us and plonked their heads back down as if to say “Oh, it’s only Wally” After a short time, the female gave a stretch and one of the brothers got up. He stood proud, a handsome beast with his slender muscular body and thick golden mane. He went over to the female, stride over her body and right before our eyes copulated. The act didn’t take long, she gave a cry and he roared, biting the back of her neck. She twisted and gave him a smack and her roll forced him off of her. Wally then proceeded to give us graphic details of the copulation process of these big cats. It is not much of a pleasant experience due to his penis being barbed, so hurting the female, hence the cry. Also, while she is in heat, she will be mounted numerous times during the day. As Wally said that, the male once again got up after a positive signal from the female and repeated his lovemaking! He seems knackered afterwards, and Wally laughed commented how tired he was after just less than 1 minute of action. Here we were sitting in the car, laughing and chatting away with these three powerful cats that could easily come and destroy us – it was surreal. The female obviously had enough being the centre of the show and wandered off into the bush with the male following her. The younger brother all this time just lying there, occasionally having a roll and a stretch, relieving himself, not even bothering to stand up! We decided to let them be, we had enough photos, plenty in fact! Wally had a call on the radio – a sighting of female lions and their cubs. Off we went and eventually came across another vehicle with two trackers in. They went off-road and we followed them into the bush, swerving around trees, ducking from sharp branches. And there they were. Two sets of families; cubs aged 4 months and others aged 7 months. Only 1 jeep per day is allowed to stop by the cubs after they are 3 weeks old and this is slowly increased so the cubs get used to the trucks. A couple of the cubs looked alert, then settled down and rested. After a time, a small voice behind me called out “Wally, I’ve dropped my sunglasses”. He handled the situation really well, very calmly moved the jeep around so that he could carefully open his door and slide down to retrieve them. He did say that had the cubs seen the glasses, they would have grabbed them, just like kittens.
The rest of the time was seeing other safari animals, various antelopes, a small herd of water buffalo, zebra, and we stopped off for a cup of coffee and rusks, chatting away standing around as a giraffe wandered by. We then drove across the plains with wonderful views of the hills in the background with warthogs and Nyala running across the track. Back to the entrance, there was Chris waiting for us with breakfast in (sadly) polystyrene containers and drove us back to our Lodges. A quick nap, lunch and out again in the afternoon. It’s all go! The next highlight was getting very close to the one cheetah in Zulu Nyala Park who was sitting on the high ground with a great view of the waterhole, waiting patiently for an opportunist kill. What a beautiful animal. I was amazed by the length of its body, and it must be amazing to see the cat reach a speed of up to 70 mph on a chase. Perhaps another day. We drove down to the waterhole and there were the two White Rhino males we saw yesterday drinking at the side. Chris informed us that they slurp the water up like us, rather than use their tongue like a dog. The radio announced that there was a 2/5 sighting of a Black Rhino. Were we going to be lucky today? We zoomed up to another high area, Chris stopped the jeep and jumped out. He walked into the bush and suddenly we could see him scarpering back to the jeep and behind him was a large dark object – it was the Black Rhino. A couple more times, he went into the bush and snapped off a branch and was brushing this against the floor to make a noise. The Black Rhino or another name for them is the hooked-lipped Rhino is inquisitive, highly dangerous and sadly now critically endangered. Eventually, curiosity got the better of this monster and luckily for us out it came. Oh wow! What a treat and what a fabulous day. We have now seen 4 of the big 5 game animals. Just a leopard to get full marks.
