Lions!

Day4 March 4th 2008
In Central Kalahari Game Reserve

We woke early in the silence of the wild African plains, before dawn, and Simon suggested I get out my camera and photograph the sunrise. The sun was in no hurry to arrive, and we spent about an hour just watching and listening to the Kalahari awakening, while Gemsbok and Springbok grazed on the plains around us. It was lovely!

As we watched the horizon waiting for the flaming orange ball to rise, I suddenly noticed that we were being watched! A black-backed jackal was sitting not 10m/30 feet from our truck and watching us. She stayed for quite some time, totally unperturbed by our presence, not even reacting when Simon made a noise. We spoke in low tones and she flicked her ears at us, but was not startled and did not move away. After sunrise she trotted off, presumably to catch breakfast, and we saw about three jackals around the camp while we were making our own breakfast. None of these others came close to us, though.

We packed up the tent and had a leisurely pancake breakfast, followed by my first experience of a latrine! We had a wash with the special "bath wet wipes" that Simon bought and then I snapped a few photos of the gemsbok that were grazing around us. To my astonishment, this gemsbok actually sat down to pee! Simon didn't believe me, but here's the photo! Are there any animal behaviourists out there? I've not seen this before and we didn't see it again.

As we had the whole day ahead of us, we drove around the reserve at a leisurely pace. Yesterday we had discovered that the track to Tau Pan was very overgrown with high grass and shrubs over which you could not see, so we decided to rather go via Deception Pan, where it was more flat and open. As we drove we saw several of the tree-glades similar to the one we had camped at last night, along with the signposts. These signposts actually did have the signs on them. They said "No Camping."

Coming around a corner, we startled this little guy. Simon thinks it might have been an ostrich chick. I'm not sure, but it was quite big. He had a single wisp of grass in his beak and, despite getting a huge fright when he saw us, he didn't drop it. He took off down the road, running as fast as his little legs would take him, still clutching the wisp. Simon followed him for a while but the poor chap, obviously panic-stricken, stayed in the road. We couldn't drive behind the little fellow all day, so Simon pulled out to the left and tried to drive past him and he veered off to the right and into the bushes in such a flap that he tumbled head over heels and dropped his grass stalk. I felt so sorry for him!

We had a glorious time in the Kalahari! We saw gemsbok, ostrich, springbok, hartebeest, ground squirrels, giraffe, secretary birds, ducks, and a myriad of other birds.



We got to Deception Pan around mid-day. It was hot, flat and beautiful! The view is unimpeded from horizon to horizon and we were alone in the wild! The only traffic jam we'd had to contend with was the startled ostrich chick mentioned earlier.

We stopped for a bit, to stretch our legs and have a pee and I snapped this photo of Simon by the truck. Simon generally tried to stop in areas where it was very open with good visibility, so as to avoid being surprised by anything that might eat us. An exceptionally good idea, as not long after we found lions!

This beautiful male was sheltering under a tree with two females. The one lioness got him cross and he snarled and growled at her. See how he's baring his teeth? She still bugged him though, and eventually he stalked off to another tree nearby.

We could hear him grumbling for a bit and then, to my utter delight, he began to purr!

We headed on down to the Letlehau Waterhole and found two more lionesses. Well, we didn't find them, Eagle-Eyes Simon saw them. Simon has the most fantastic eyes and notices the most amazing things. Except, of course, the mundane stuff, like when I have my hair done! ;o) (It must be a man thing, right ladies? LOL) Anyway, Simon saw these two behind a bush. They were so perfectly camouflaged that we might have driven straight past them, totally unawares.

We stopped to take a couple of photos, but they were on the wrong side of the bush, and I was getting a little frustrated trying to get a good shot. Simon wound up the windows and eased the truck forward to pass them and give me a better view. I managed to get a couple of shots, but the grass obscured them and they were not in the mood to be photographed.

Simon inched forward some more and I snapped a couple more pics, before the two girls got totally annoyed at these pesky quadrupeds and moved away. They walked around the bush, behind the truck and off to our left down to another tree some 30m/100 feet away, where another lioness was resting. We hadn't seen her at all! She was virtually invisible in the long grass and only revealed herself when she stood up as the other two approached.

One of the lions turned around as they were walking away, and gave us this filthy look, as if absolutely disgusted that we had disturbed their afternoon snooze! Sorry!

We arrived at our campsite in good time, the correct, proper, marked campsite this time, and set up to enjoy a pleasant evening meal with plenty of time to eat, clean up and pack away, then relax before sunset. Our camp was less than a mile from where we had seen the lionesses, and the bush was very dense around it, so we were very watchful for predators. As a precaution, we made sure we were safely zipped in the tent shortly after nightfall and our night's rest was punctuated by the growls and calls of lion, hyena and jackals. Bliss!