As I've said previously, driving can be boring and the last 2 days definately fit into that category. But we had new people to talk with so we spent the days getting to know them a bit better ... or sleeping.
Africa has numerous National Parks that claim to be the best for Game viewing and South Luwanga is one of them. Fortunately for it, it's claim is justified. Every person that we have meet have all said that South Luwanga was one of their best parks that they have visited. I put this down to 2 reasons. The first is that the Camp Site is right on the banks of the Luwanga river and acts as a drawcard for all creatures great and small when they become thirsty. The added excitement that the camp site is NOT fenced and the animal can ROAM FREELY and the Hippo's and Croc just laze on the banks below doesn't hinder the appeal one bit. In fact, when we awoke on the first morning we could clearly see fresh Lion footprints in the mud 10m from the Truck. No one heard or saw it, probably because it was raining again with tons of Lightning and Thunder all night. If you ask me, it was perfect. The second reason is that South Luwanga has not had a poaching problem now since the mid 80's and all the animals are just not scared of the human interaction, as long as you stay in the vechicle. here is the fact that Leopards are spotted often. As part of our tour a night game drive is included but Audrey and I are taking every opportunity to do extra ones when they are offered. Hence on this mornings drive we got to see our first Leopard. This completed the set for us, we have now seen the 'Big 5'. The Leopard itself looked a little
After the morning drive we spent the middle part of the day playing cards and having a few beverages and listening to the Hippo's moan and fart. At 16H00 we then went out for the evening game drive which promised a lot of excitement. The same 6 of us who were on the earlier drive jumped in with the same driver (who obviously had a good strike rate so far) plus our driver and Cassandra joined has 2 extras. The game plan was to go straight back to where we saw the Lions (because apparently once they are settled in a place in the morning they will stay there all day) and see what they do. We weren't dissapointed when got there because all 7 were out in the open, some laying on their backs just wanting a scratch on the belly, some licking fur off of others and some just/still sleeping. I've said it beefore but it looks like you could just walk up to them and give them a pat. How wrong I was. When we got there 1 truck was already watching them. After a while more came (including all of the people from the tour) so that we eventually had 5 trucks parked around these beautiful creatures. And then it got interesting. A group of Zebra started to wander into our view and it wasn't long before the first Lion saw them. Straight away it got into it's crouching position and watched them, not moving. One by one all the others saw the Zebra and it became quite clear that we were about to witness something extraordinary, something that I'd earlier told the South African film crew that I wanted to see: a kill.
It really was incredible to watch the scene unfold. The Lions knew exactly the role of each other. Although we didn't actually see the kill, afterwards it occurred to me that I probably wouldn't have want to anyway, but we saw everything else there was to see. It's like reading a book. You read every chapter before the big revele, miss that bit, then finish on the conclusion. Anyway it was really satifying to be there and see African brutality at it's best.
The rest of the game drive would have been great except for what we'd seen made it a bit oh-hum. We saw a couple more Leopards, some Hippo's up really close and several new animals I hadn't seen before. We stopped to have a beer were we could clearly see Elephants and Zebra. While we were there a Hyena decided to wander on by. A really good day.
Base on history, tomorrow should by shit ...