Mostly lion

We’re up at 5 for a hot drink and a rusk so as to be in time for a 6am game drive. We have Hanel’s vehicle to ourselves this time. We have agreed to return to the place where we saw the cheetah and her cub, but along the way we see jackals, secretary birds and wildebeest with calves.

Then we’re stopped by a passing vehicle and told that a male lion has killed an oryx. We find him a little way past where we found the cheetahs, resting with a full belly. The oryx has been stowed beneath a tree and a pair of jackals watch at a distance, looking for an opportunity to scavenge. We spend some time here, enjoying the golden morning light.

On the way back to the gate we see some live oryx, more wildebeest and springbok, including a solitary springbok sitting in the dry riverbed, a pale chanting goshawk and some ostrich with chicks. We also find the cheetah and her cub.

In the middle of the day, Mike takes us out on an additional game drive, in the combi. We return to spend some more time with the lion and his kill, and on the way back we see some springbok, wildebeest and oryx. The cheetah and her cub are resting beneath a tree. 

When we get back, Bobby-Jo teaches us how to clean our cameras while we eat some wraps to keep us going until dinner time; birds and squirrels scrabble for crumbs around our feet.

Our evening game drive heads straight for the lion, stopping briefly when Hanel thinks she may have run over a cape cobra. We reverse to look for signs and find only the wavy track it has made in the dirt road – it clearly got away. We spend “golden hour” with the lion, which is still accompanied (at a safe distance) by two jackals; they seem to be eating the blood spilled when he made the kill. We see more jackals on the way back to camp, as well as two male cheetah lying beneath a tree and both bat-eared and cape foxes.

Dinner tonight is a beef casserole, cooked in pot-bellied pot over charcoal.