About 15 minutes in, Matt and Muzi both noticed fresh leopard tracks. They knew a solitary male was in the area and they sought out on foot for more signs.
After 10 minutes or so, only Matt came back...
And left again, this time with the rifle.
Alas, no luck on the leopard this time.
There was an friendly on-going dispute between Matt and Muzi regarding the most beautiful animal in the bush. Muzi was adamant that leopards were most striking, while Matt contended that it was the cheetah.
Today's winner would be Matt...
We found these three females sitting on a rise in the morning scanning the savannah for prey. While the pictures are great, I'm not sure that they do justice to the absolute beauty of these animals.
For one thing, they are built to sit this way to maintain a low profile so that their prey won't easily see them. They can stay like this for some time and be completely unnoticed by the surrounding wildlife.
We probably have more than 100 pictures from this encounter and it was very difficult not to post all of them.
We also found some Wildebeest underneath a fever tree.
And got stuck in a rhino traffic jam.
We interrupted the morning nap of the lion pride. This time they had a cub with them.
He was not particularly bothered by our presence.
Yet another close-up encounter with a male giraffe.
Around the middle of the morning game drive, we stopped for a coffee break (aka 2nd breakfast). We were offered a mocha-choca-rula, which is the magical combination of coffee, hot chocolate and amarula cream liquor. Think of it is a slightly fruity and much more tasty Bailey's.
Before we made it back to the lodge, Matt asked if anyone was interested in returning the rest of the way on foot. It was too good of an offer to pass up. On a bush walk, you aren't necessarily hoping to see big game. In many cases, that would likely be dangerous, so Matt brought rifle along and asked us to stay behind him at all times. Also, if an animal charges, we were told emphatically not to run. Good thing we didn't need to test our nerves!
Elephant dung is mostly just grass and wood fiber. Somehow Devon managed to not get photographed holding any poop.
When we made it back to the lodge we were so hungry that we needed a third breakfast.
After breakfast, we went with Jess and Matt to scout out the wedding location. After a spirited debate about the pros and cons of all of the locations, we picked the one that Devon liked best. Back at the lodge, we celebrated with some champagne. Our two servers, Mathilde and Tasha, really spoiled us since the next day would be our wedding day. We learned that Tasha would be getting married soon as well and Devon asked her if she'd be willing to help us on our special occasion. It was unclear if Devon or Tasha was more excited.
While we rested up in the room, our neighbors the vervet monkeys and the nyala checked on us.
While we enjoyed our lunch, we were able to meet with our wedding photographer, Francois. It was clear that he was a true artist and maybe a bit of a mad scientist. He was able to ease all of our concerns regarding our wedding photos and we were very excited that our images were in his hands.
For our afternoon game drive, we started out on foot with Matt and we'd be picked up later in the bush by Muzi. We got to experience the cool shade of the sand forest and the roasting heat of the savannah. Matt took us to an elephant graveyard that he said the living elephants come and visit on occasion. He also noticed fresh lion tracks, which definitely caught everyone's attention. Luckily, we didn't encounter any by the time that Muzi came to fetch us.
Driving by a watering hole, we saw an African Fish Eagle. It has a striking resemblance to a certain American bird, no?
We were told that we'd see a lot fewer giraffes in the other places we would stay so we should enjoy the opportunity while we could...
The lion pride hadn't really moved since the morning. We could see their coloring much more clearly in the afternoon light.
We also finally were able to see the dominant male lion of the area. He would be the father to any of the cubs within the pride. Here he was several hundred yards away from the pride napping with a very large lioness. Matt pointed out that he had a very dark mane which is unlike the other lions of the area. He was brought into the reserve by Phinda to keep the lion population healthy and to prevent inbreeding.
Time for a sundowner?
G&Ts all around.
On our way back to the lodge, we spied the male leopard that we were looking for in the morning. He was climbing under the fence into another game reserve. Only Francois was fast enough to get a shot of him before he ran off into the darkness.
While it seems impossible that we could eat any more, we enjoyed a lovely dinner on the veranda. Rob had prawns in peri-peri (an African pepper) sauce and Devon had a ostrich steak. Everyone asked if we were nervous on the night before our wedding, but once again, exhaustion kicked in and we slept like rocks.
How awesome that you were able to relax and enjoy a game drive the day before the wedding!
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