I woke just before 5am and snuck off to the loo with my cell phone light, but quickly realised that I should have taken a blanket with as the “smoke” wasn’t from my vape but rather condensation from my breath.
The Cow, Albert and I were the 1st to arrive at the communal lounge just after 6am and the main priority was the kettle, but I hovered around still half asleep on the veranda outside to see if I could see the others coming so that we could get the coffee cup count correct.
Suddenly a lion let rip and it was very close, like in the Gqoyeni riverbed 50m away, and a second later the Cow and Albert came outside the communal lounge with eyes like saucers.
“Is it in camp!”
“It’s right here, I think in front of Albert’s unit!”
The lion then let rip again, but he had moved up towards Bushpig’s unit and the car park area.
The Cow was wandering around with her cell phone in the air trying to record the lion, but I went into an overexcited mode.
“Quick to the car! Just grab the camera, I got the torch. We will come back!”
“Quiet, I’m recording!”
I ignored the Cow and charged off down the walkway towards the other units and the lion with the Cow and Albert who then decided to reluctantly follow at a distance.
Hawkeyes, Sasquatch, Bushpig & Turtlehead were still in their units and it was still pitch black outside which added to the vibe.
“Lion! Quick, we getting in the car to find it”
Turtlehead then chirped from his unit
“It sounds like it’s in the car park!”
This made me a little edgy since the car park was about 25m from where I was standing, so I snuck further down the walkway to the car park alone to make sure he wasn’t in the car park because I wouldn’t be popular if the Cow came face to face with a lion while walking to the car.
I carefully scanned the car park with the torch, but no eyes or movement, so went to the car and opened up.
The lion then roared again, but this time he was about 100m up the road, so he was still very mobile which was stressing me out because we had to pull finger to catch up to him before the road turned away from the riverbed, therefore I charged back down the walkway to everybody else.
“Move it, quick, get in the car!”
My front car window was completely misted up and Sasquatch had the same problem, so without checking the car temperature gauge, I hit the windscreen spray/wipers and waited expectantly to be able to see, but the window instantly went white and the wipers started rasping across the glass.
“WTF”
My brain then worked out what was happening
“S@#t it’s frozen!”
I then checked the car temperature gauge; it was on 0 degrees.
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Sasquatch had the same issue, but I knew the clock was ticking on us, so I started off impulsively down the road while looking out my open side window, but nearly hit a tree, so slowed and issued frantic instructions.
“Shine the torch, check there! He last roared from this area!”
About 1km down the road we realised that we had missed the boat, it was still pitch black, we couldn’t see much with the torch and had lost all bearings on the lion position, so we turned and headed back to camp for our morning coffee, however it was still an awesome experience for all to have a male lion roaring so close while outside and on foot.
We finished the coffee and got back in the cars at around 6:45am as it was now light enough to at least see what was happening around us.
We had to book out before 10am, so the plan was to do a 2-hour morning drive and then return to camp for breakfast at around 8:30am before packing to go home. I checked the distances and we had enough time to cruise to view point 17 and then around to Mpafa hide before looping back to Gqoyeni.
About 3km from Gqoyeni towards view point 17 the Cow grabbed the dashboard
“There, in the road! Cheetah!”
The cheetah unfortunately instantly moved off the road and into thick bush, so I slowly approached the area where we had last seen it but we had no visibility, therefore I jumped on the walkie talkie to Hawkeyes and they had the cheetah about 20m behind us and thought we could see it. I frantically reversed and Sasquatch made space for us.
The cheetah was in thick bush, moving off and it was still fairly dark, so we only had time for a few quick proof pics.
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The rest of the drive around towards Mpafa hide produced the usual clan, a few rhinos and a secretary bird.
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