It was a lucky day...in so many ways.
We had a fantastic sleep last night. I was hoping to hear more noises, but apparently I slept soundly. Some of the group did report some noises: elephants (Beth), hyenas (Abby) and lions (Grayson and Tom - we believed that one the most).
We left around 8am. The plan was to head over to the small Seronera river and trace it up and down in search of some predators. With the savannah so dry during the winter months, the big predator cats were known to be close to the river to take advantage of thirsty prey.
Not long into our drive, we spotted a lioness with a tracking collar about ten meters from the car. Right behind it, low and behold, was a beautiful male lion. Apparently It was mating time as before we even realized it, the male did his business, let out a roar and got off (in both ways...) the lioness.
We were kind of bummed that we didn't realize what was going on. We got some great shots of both lions as they crossed in front of us. At one point, the male couldn't see the female that was hidden behind a jeep and he let out a huge crap-in-your-pants roar.
As this was going on, Grayson explained that we will sit here and watch because they would continue to mate. In fact, lions will mate for seven days straight - starting out at once every ten minutes (!) and slowing down to once every twenty or thirty minutes by the end of day seven. They will "connect" close to nine hundred times over those seven days, and usually not eat during that period. What??!?
During the explanation, we had to pause as the male "took" the lioness again, with a roar. It was very quick. By the third time (ten minutes later again!), Beth got her phone setup and got the whole thing on video. Crazy. Cool. Funny. Watching the kids car, especially Robin, was hilarious. What luck - for us and the lioness....or lion.... or both... depending on your perspective!
We saw a lot of other lions, some fighting gazelles, a crocodile, lots of elephants, and even a bunch of cute little fat rodent type animals at a rest stop / info center....but come on, lions mating? We couldn't believe our luck.
We headed back towards Kati Kati at around 12:30, but just as we were almost home, we spotted a regal Simba posing for photos all alone on a large rock oasis. They really do have a fantastically powerful aura. Beautiful.
We had a very chatty, excitable lunch, then headed back to our respective tents. I did some laundry and sat out front to read, the kids payed cards and the rest of the adults slept.
Suddenly, four guys ran in front of my tent then around to the back. A fifth guy said "can we use laundry bucket" as he ran by. I dashed behind the tent and about fifty meters away was a blackedned circle. Fifty more meters beyond, a raging grass fire burned. With the relatively strong winds blowing (away from the camp thank god) the fire was expanding in a circle very quickly. Before long there were twenty guys outside trying to douse the fire with water buckets. Their effort was pretty disorganized, and I'm not sure how much the water was helping. The only saving grace was the roads perhaps five hundred meters behind the camp. The wind wasn't strong enough to carry the fire across the roads so after about forty five minutes things were under control. When I made my way back to the tent, Beth came out with bed head and said in a sleepy voice "can you ask them for shower water?". Lol. I thought the use of water then might be a little soon...
We found out later that the guys responsible for shower and laundry water had resorted to boiling water over a fire because the solar system wasn't working.... at lunch, the untended coals kicked up into a fire that started onto the grass. Here we are (some of us) all worried about proximity to animals and we overlooked the hazards caused by humans!
At around four o'clock, we decided to do a family car game drive (for the first time!). The Tyndalls hopped in Tom's car, and the Versly four in Grayson's. On the way out, we passed by "Simba Rock" again and sure enough, he was still there. This time the majestic male lion was sitting at the very top of the rock outcropping, enjoying the late afternoon breeze.
We headed slowly back to the Seronera River banks where we spotted a jackal carrying off a baby Gazelle in his mouth. Later, we'd heard that at the same time, the Versly car spotted a hyena mother carrying her baby in her mouth then dropping it in their den. Kim got a great picture of it.
We cruised for a while, eventually spotting a group of jeeps. When we made our way up there, we saw a pride of 13 adolescent lions lounging by the road. Tom thought that they looked a little desperate; perhaps a little under fed. The lioness of the pride was elsewhere (maybe it was that pair that were hooking up this morning....875.....876....877.... back in two days kids!). These guys got really close to the cars, sometimes using them as shade. One walked within inches of my window then parked herself under Tom's front wheel.
After about a half hour of cruising after leaving the lions, Tom stopped and said "look in that tree, a leopard has a gazelle". I don't know how he spotted that but it wasn't a radio call. Sure enough, with binoculars and my zoom lens, we got a pretty good picture of what was going on there. Beth hadn't seen it yet, but made Tom laugh by asking "is the gazelle alive?" (Editors note: the only way a gazelle climbs a tree is between the jaws of a leopard). I felt lucky to see my favourite animal again, although it was still at a distance.
We started to head buck, and stopped briefly when we noticed two gazelles having a pretty good fight, though they stopped as soon as we drove up to them. You're welcome!
We were following Grayson at a distance on a remote looping road home when he stopped, turned and went off the road. I could tell by the excitement of Matt and Jeffrey that it was something big. Tom pulled ahead of where they left the road, then we did the same. Two leopards were stalking through the grass in front of us - I was giddy. We leapfrogged jeeps, staying in front of them. Tom was positioning our jeep with extreme photographic expertise. At one point, we were in front of a tree when the large, older male came out of the brush, and leaped up into the tree to take a look around. No sooner than he was up, he was down again and began stalking some nearby gazelles. The much smaller female trailed him by about two hundred meters.
The gazelles scattered, but we soon learned that the leopards weren't in a hunting mood...oh no.... they were in an altogether different mood. The female lay down and waved her tail...wait a minute, we'd seen this before somewhere.... oh! It was time to get busy. The male mounted her from behind and was done very quickly with a growl. He mock bit her shoulder and she slapped him away and then rolled on her back. Five minutes later (yes, five minutes), they did it again - this time the female began cleaning herself and Robin declared "I wouldn't be doing that right after!"....lol.
What a day to get lucky...a lucky day... or, whatever. What a day.
With a bright orange sun just finishing its final drop below the horizon, we began speeding home to Kati Kati. Just before we got home, the boys spotted two cheetahs fooling around on a dead log. When they noticed us, the walked, jogged then ran right in front of our jeeps. Even to see them run at a fraction of their full speed (120 km/h!) was amazing.
We didn't end up getting back until seven. Man, were we all pumped! Even Grayson and Tom seemed pretty jacked up. To make things even better, the staff came by and offered us two free bottles of wine due to the inconvenience of the afternoon fire - don't mind if we do!
Dinner was great... a little more of an Indian flare tonight. It was so good, that Abby spotted a hyena a couple of meters away when it came in and went after the dessert plate on top of the serving table. Nice spot Abby!
We have an early day tomorrow. I can't imagine tomorrow will be better than today, but I've been saying that for a while now an I've been wrong every time.
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