The following morning we let ourselves out the Malelane gate at gate opening .
Shortly after turning onto the S114 River road we found the Sunrise drive watching a Hippo heading home for the day .
We followed the drive for a little down the road and stopped to enjoy the sunrise and the drive carried on .
Shortly after turning onto the S25 we noticed a group of Vultures on a tree on the riverside busy taking off for their days activities and we stopped to take some pics as the were coming past ...
As they flew over the vehicle SO says very calmly look there's a Leopard and sure as eggs on the Left of the vehicle there was a Leopard in a tree .It was still early and all we could basically see was the Silhouette . As there was no Sunrise drive we assumed they had carried on up the S114 . We had the sighting all to ourselves so we continued to watch and fill up Memory cards .As it became lighter we could make out a Impala carcass in the tree .The Leopard was alert and moved around a bit also watching us .
Eventually the Leopard settled down but was watching around the base of the tree still .We were still the only vehicle after about 25 minutes .We moved our position and saw a Hyena at the base of the tree hoping for a take away .
After some time the Hyena came out and ran down the road .
Some of the Vultures had stayed on the other side of the road including this one .
With the Hyaena leaving the Leopard settled down for some shuteye and the first few vehicles arrived to share the sighting .
We had had the sighting of the trip all to ourselves and now that more vehicles were arriving we decided to move on and go past Gardenia hide .More of this sighting later