Jan 24 – Imfolozi Day 3

Giraffe and Zebra quenching their thirst in the hot afternoon.

Herd of Elephant coming our way.

Play time!

King of the Road!

Lioness guarding the pride's kill.

We woke up bright and early again to make the most of our last day at the game reserve. Since we were having such great luck at spotting wildlife on the Sontuli Loop, we decided to head in that direction again. Our hunch paid off as we were quickly rewarded with sightings of Giraffe close to the road. More interesting was when we got to see them drinking from a water hole a little later in the day. It’s amazing how such a tall animal is able to bend down to reach the water…looks very awkward.

We then had one the most exciting experiences of our last 2 days when we witnessed a herd of some 40 elephant crossing the road right in front of us!!! A few of the babies paused to play; wrestling was their game of choice as they pushed into each other with their trunks and heads. The straggler in the pack gave us little warning as she walked by. She stopped in front of us and waved her ears…never a good sign, but then she continued on, since we posed no threat.

A little further on we spotted several other cars and a tourist guide’s truck parked to the side of the road, so we knew there must be something worth checking out. Sure enough, across the river, resting under a big tree, was a pride of 9 lion…this was very impressive to see even from a distance through binoculars. They are absolutely beautiful from a far, but I wouldn’t want to come up on one without the protection of the SUV.

We tried to get a bit closer from another viewing point and were rewarded again with sightings of black Rhino, Elephant, Cape Buffalo and Lion…4 of the big 5 in one area…talk about luck!

On our way back to Mpila camp to pack up and check out…we were stopped by a bull elephant on the road, who did not want to move and actually started flapping his ears and walking right towards us…a good sign to put it in reverse and get out of his way. Luckily he didn’t advance very fast, but we actually had to reverse about 1 km back to let him pass before we were able to carry on…let’s just say we were all on edge as this guy was king of the road. Definitely a white knuckled, hold your breath moment!

As we got back on track to get to Mpila, Warren spotted a lone lioness sitting on the edge of a dry river bed…less than 50 ft. from our SUV. What an exciting moment this was to get this close to such a beautiful, but yet very large and fierce cat…we sat and watched in awe not expecting what happened next. As she got up to start to walk down into the river bed, we saw the tail and hind quarters of another lion. A loud roar and growling took us all by surprise, but not as much as the terrified bellow of another animal… obviously one uttering its last breath!!! We couldn’t believe that we had stumbled upon a lion kill!!!

We decided to head down to the river’s bridge to see if we had a better view of the kill…and sure enough we did. With binoculars, we made out another full lion pride consisting of at least 2 lions, 4 lionesses and 2 cubs. They had killed a wildebeest and it was gory but yet amazing to see them take turns feasting. The lions and cubs went in first while the lionesses kept watch… the cubs didn’t look quite so cute with blood all over their faces. Two of the lionesses never took their eyes off our SUV. The pride was quite vocal during their feed, as they growled and roared and Maddie later told us that those sounds were very scary…no kidding!

This was the highlight of our 3 day trip to Imfolozi…the only big 5 animal to elude us was the Leopard…oh well; we’ll get you next time. We got a wonderful send off as we exited the park by a lone elephant grazing right next to the big electric perimeter fence. It was surreal to see an elephant on one side and cattle on the other…both grazing! Driving home through the heart of the Zulu Kingdom, we were able to capture some photos of the local people and their homes.