Africa Wild

6th September Skukuza to Biyamiti continued

The S139 didn’t produce any major action with only the odd local popping up, but it was still very hot so we didn’t expect too much animal movement yet, however we did stop and watch a Bateleur in the riverbed for a while and then the weir produced a heron, but no kingfisher locals that we were hoping for.


The S114 down to James’s Pan was also very quiet and nothing was drinking or hanging around the Pan/waterhole, so we had time to spare, therefore we decided to take a drive down the S119 and, if time permitted, possibly continue on that route to the S25 and back to Biyamiti.

About 300m down the S119 Albert chirped

“There was something a little further back, please reverse”

I’m not certain how she spotted the sleeping lion cub, because only an ear was visible, but it must be those young eyes.


I pulled over to the side of the road, switched off and we waited.

Around 5 minutes later another car arrived and the junior lion woke up and started looking around. Minutes later the cub started calling and walking all different directions in a semi distressed state. I knew that the lion pride in this area had 8 cubs (From updates, I believe only possibly 6 are alive now), so I assumed that this junior got left behind or was sleeping while the others moved off.

The cub continued to circle the area while calling and then suddenly looked in a particular direction and ducked off down to the riverbed and out of sight.

We had now spent too much time with this cub to continue with the S119/S25 loop around to Biyamiti, so we turned and headed back towards the S114 and James’s Pan.

As we turned onto the S114 towards James’s Pan something on the side of the road up ahead caught my eye and then there was a 2nd movement.

“LION, up ahead coming onto the road”



The lion then started to move back off the road, so we slowly approached the area where they had left the road and found 3 lionesses still there and they were very close to the road, therefore I slowly snuck into position.

The lionesses then all started calling, so we knew it was a matter of time before the cubs showed up, or they heard their cubs and moved off.

After a few minutes of calling, they all lay down in different spots in the grass next to the road, so we just quietly waited with them and minutes later the cubs came running out the bush from the S119 side. The lionesses moved almost instantly and unfortunately, they chose to head back into the thick bush with the cubs, so we couldn’t get pics of all the cubs together with the 3 adults and only got pics of the cubs that greeted the lioness closest to us.

I was a little nervous about the time as the Biyamiti road always takes longer than expected, so we decided to make tracks back towards camp instead of trying to locate the lions again.

There were no fireworks on the drive back except for a few faulty S139 Biyamiti ellies that we had to dodge which created some excitement for me and horror for the Cow.

After our braai and a patrol along the fence line, we just parked off on the veranda chatting and the local beggar genet arrived to check us out, but soon moved off on its rounds towards our neighbour’s unit.


To be continued

Great lion sighting!!

Nice portraits of the lioness She must be quite young with those teeth, that don't need a dentist

What a day, Bushy!

That triple leopard sighting is astounding!

And a kill to boot!

Nice way to end off with a good Albert lion spotting too.

I see you put the wood on the fire early...weird!

Sorry about the tortoise...I've wiped out animals too, sometimes you just don't see them, although this person seemed a bit doff!

I forgot to ask, is the GC6 at Skukuza 6 full beds or does one have to struggle with the silly couches?

Also love the lion portraits and the heron from Biyamiti weir

Thanks Bushcraft,

although the S139 is a lovely road same can be extreme dense in summer months so we never had that much luck on that road and even the ellies are well hidden there

Flutterby wrote: ↑Thu Nov 14, 2024 8:25 am Great lion sighting!!

Thanks Flutts