Safari

At risk of teaching grandmother to suck eggs, the Big Five are the five animals which were considered to be the most dangerous and difficult to hunt. Guides in Kruger and other private reserves try to encourage visitors to be interested in the many other animals in the reserves and not just the Big Five. This may stem from an enormous knowledge and a genuine concern for the wellbeing and beauty of the other animals and, forgive my whiff of synicism here, in case you don't see the Big Five, having spent vast amounts of Wonga to see them. 

Many visit Kruger and see all five, probably in the course of several days; more come and see some of them; perhaps as many come and see only buffalo and rhino. Apparently, however, few come and see all five, close up and, for goodness sake, in their first drive. Keep in mind that at the end of this eight day Wildlife and Warriors trip, which has included one game drive this morning, we come back, after Jo'burg for three nights in the Sabi Sands Private Game Reserve. This will give us at least five more drives, so we've got all bases covered and a good chance of seeing some or most of the Five. 

I shall return to the story but let me interject by saying that, in the hour before we went for dinner last night, we were exchanging contracts on the house sale, then it all collapsed, then it was to happen on Monday and then it happened before close of business. So the move is happening three days after we get back - December 9th. So we went to bed for our 5am start today a bit all over the place.

Back to my main story. Keep in mind the odds, if you will. You're not guaranteed to see all five, unlikely to see all five on one drive and very, very unlikely to get close views of all of them.

Well ain't we just the lucky ones.

We saw more buffalo, one of the Five and easiest and commonest to see.

More rhino - pah! Seen loads of them now!

Then we saw a pair of honeymooning lions, just ten metres from us:

And what a beautiful lady she is. This was breathtaking and I got a ridiculous kick out of being the one who spotted them. The shot I got of the male was less good but I'm hoping to get better when we come back.

Then, and even our guide was thrilled, we saw a leopard. The hardest and least likely to see.

We watched him just lying in the tree for ages until he decided to come down and saunter off. So that made four of the five in one drive. Add to that some squabbling zebra:

Some beautiful giraffe,

hundreds of Impala, (the McDonalds of the jungle), kudu, eagles, owls, and on and on. And then, would you believe it, number five. Just five metres from the jeep, this extraordinary beast, eating part of his 300 kilo a day diet.

Almost six hours, our first game drive and we did the Five. And there is no way to tell you how wonderful it was. This is no Woburn Safari Park: these creatures have free roam of millions of hectares of land and all we can say is this: it was a privilege to see these beautiful, wonderful, endangered animals in THEIR space. And we can't quite believe our luck.

I hope you think the pictures are reasonable enough to give an idea of what it was like. Heather has got some stunners too but it's a bit easier to upload mine.

Thanks for looking and I'll blog again after Sabi Sands - you never know we might get to see a kill, with our luck!