Begarivier

Surprisingly there were no angry words uttered as we awoke early and got ready for our 6am safari pick up. This time we went to another part of the reserve in search of lions and elephants. The adventure did not disappoint! We saw hippos, a jackal, giraffes, Guinea fowl, a zebra carcass (apologies for the gruesome shot, it looked like something from a movie) knowing lions must be near. We then found a lioness and her two cubs - quite incredible seeing them in their natural habitat and then they sought shade after their full bellies of zebra. We found plenty of fresh elephant poo, no elephants this time. We came back to the main lodge and had a hearty buffet breakfast. Pete had a snooze, the kids chilled. I went on a walking safari with our guide Matthew and the 4 Germans who are part of our safari group. It’s so different and quiet seeing the landscape by foot. Beautiful adventure and the baboons started signalling across the valley that we were approaching. We saw an amazing amount of animals up close - giraffes, impala, a tortoise, water buck, wildebeest, ostriches- including a 3 day old chick who started following us, which we encouraged it back to its Mum so it wouldn’t attack us! We had a swim in our plunge pool and chilled back at the chalet, reading and playing games. Despite our big breakfast we were hungry for lunch, Ted tried ostrich steaks, the rest of us settled for salad and pasta. Everyone chilled and we then assembled for our afternoon safari at 4.30pm. The next safari chapter was a longer drive in search of male lions and elephants. Wow. We found the 2 males, chilled on a hill and then the elephants ruled. Alarmingly close and so majestic. There were so many. After our fix of elephants we had a sundowner and made our way back for a BBQ dinner and singing by a local choir. A perfect day.Read more