Prik Ki Nu

Well, not really sleeping, but sitting silent amongst them at least. On Thursday we did a night drive at Pinda. Pinda is another reserve that backs on to Zulu Nyala, so it was only 20 minutes away. Pinda has a few prides of lions that live on the reserve and so we went to visit them.

The setup at Pinda was slightly different, they had open-top land-rovers with a ‘tracker’ sitting on a seat mounted on the front hood. They also had radios, so they could communicate with other rangers as to where the animals were located.

After a short drive, stopping off to see some Giraffes we came upon a lion in the brush. The ranger turned the Landy in and proceeded to make a wide sweep behind them to creep up slowly. As we approached, we spotted a male lion on the right.

He was basking in the sun and a little curious to see the Land Rover. The guide cut the engine and we sat in silence about 15 feet away waiting for him to settle down.

As he settled, a female lion and a few others appeared to be stalking us from the grass.

She came up about 12 feet from the jeep, cautiously followed by three young and very cute lion cubs.

The male lion got up and plunked himself in the grass a little further away. He didn’t look like he was planning on moving for the night. As the lioness came past the male lion the stopped to rub heads on each other - apparently the way that lions greet.

We followed them slowly for about 20 minutes or so, as the lioness and her cubs walked across a road and into more grasses. She suddenly appeared interested in a herd or zebra and wildebeests up ahead with a curiosity for an early evening snack.

Somehow, she silently looked back and signaled to the boys to stay put while mum goes off to hunt Zebra.

The boys too heed and watched keenly on how mum was about to prepare their evening dinner…

We followed mum while she hunted for 20 minutes or so.

The rangers were very careful to stay well back and they didn’t want to give either side any kind of advantage. The lions are smart enough to sometimes try and use the land rovers for cover, sneaking up along side them.

There were two large herds of interest to the lioness - a herd of Wildebeest and a herd of Zebra. Unfortunately for the lioness, the Zebra were in between her and the wildebeests. Zebra can be quite hard work for a lion to catch on their own without backup. She stalked for 10 minutes or so and then turned back to her cubs. They would either go hungry tonight, or perhaps snack on a little wart-hog later on.

When mum arrived back at the cubs, there was much nose rubbing and happiness. The boys lay down next to each other and wrestled for a while.

Took a few big yawns, and went back to napping.

And that was that.

I will say that it was an incredible experience, being out in the the wild bush only feet away from such strong animals that could probably kill you with one bite. The adrenaline rush and the excitement of being so close will be with me for quite some time. I can highly recommend going on Safari to anyone who has yet to do it. It’s a must for one of those life-experiences

by Brett

This entry was posted on Saturday, May 27th, 2006 at 5:47 pm and is filed under World Trip. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.