would have produced some
beautiful photographs – if I had
been a better photographer.
A night drive in one of the
Mopani’s Toyota trucks, was re-
ally quite exciting and although
we didn’t see any of the big cats,
we did see three species that
even Marc and Brigid had never
seen before. A Side-Striped
Jackal, an African Wild Cat and a
White (Scops) Owl. Besides
which, we got too close to a bull
elephant who became very, very
irritated - even though we
couldn’t actually see him. The
guy in the seat behind me was
wetting himself.
As fourth car out of the gate at 06:00 next day, we headed south and began ‘bush scanning’ in earnest
not a moment too soon. Dramatically, at eight minutes past six, we saw a Leopard. Fleetingly and she
vanished rapidly back into the bush, but we had seen our Leopard. Wow! A few minutes later we
stopped to look at something else and heard a strange rumbling noise, that wasn’t a 300TDi. A whole
bunch of Ellies were so close to us, just in the Acacia bush on the near side, that we could hear their
stomachs rumbling!
After breakfast at Oliphants Lodge, we heard a rumour that Lion had been seen at Ngotso Dam only
half hour or so past and a few kilometres away. When we got there, it was mysteriously full of Zebra,
Impala, Kudu and a few Buffalo. Not encouraging for seeing big predators, but on closer examination
we spotted two male and about six female Lions, a long way off, basking in the middle of all the other
wildlife. We camped that night at Skukusa Lodge, the largest and busiest Lodge in the whole Park, but
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