A Remarkable Addo Day Trip (December 2016)

[Alf]

Poor Gibson. So many battle scars. But he looks good.

Love that little piggy and elllie

[Flutterby]

Gibson sure is majestic looking...scars and all!

[Mel]

Aha... Lion number one

But geez, Gibson looks quite old with his many scars. But isn't he younger than the rest of the male lot (except Melvin, that is of course...)? Because I seem to remember that when he was still an adolescent, all the other males were already sporting their beautiful black manes and if I remember correctly from seeing them, either live or on photos, none of them has such a scratched face

Love your captions to go with the sighting!

Sooo... still in the park... still pretty far up north for wanting to go out in the south...

More , I guess.

[Pumbaa]

Wonderful Lion shots, PJL

and then the cute warthog piglet, the korhaan and the Zebras - Awesome and brilliant sightings and shots

[PJL]

Thanks Alf, Flutts, Mel & Pumbaa for your comments and tagging along

But geez, Gibson looks quite old with his many scars. But isn't he younger than the rest of the male lot (except Melvin, that is of course...)?

Yes, Gibson and Melvin are the youngest males in the park.
I think the scratches are probably from a mix of fighting with Melvin as well as with Norman & Zwaai from time to time

[PJL]

After waiting around and getting a no-show from Gibson it was too late to make it all the way through the park to the south gate, so we decided that we would still head south, but exit at the east gate. This is on a public road, and anyone can leave through those access gates... you just can't enter that way in the morning as they don't issue permits there.

On the way round to Rooidam we found this handsome chap browsing in the bushes. He had a great set of horns



Then on the dirt road there was a car reversing towards us with its hazard warning lights flashing. What was going on? We slowly drove past the car, which continued to reverse and then we saw the reason for their bizarre manoeuvres - Valli was coming round the corner



We pulled over to the side of the road and turned the engine off, hoping that the people in the reversing car might learn and do the same, but I think they carried on reversing all the way back to the main camp
Here's a video of the day's second very close encounter with Valli taken with my phone camera

https://youtu.be/tRU3dMdY_K8

Presumably everyone was heading back towards the main camp, so by the time we reached Hapoor it felt like we were the only people left in the park
The drive south was fairly uneventful for a while. Marion Baree was quiet except for a jackal trotting along



But as we descended from the hill above Wayne's Valley, something sticking in the air looked very much like lions paws
On closer inspection it was clearly a lion lying on its back with its paws up in the air... and another male lion nearby - we had found Roy & Nomad and there were no other cars around

Nomad was looking the opposite direction from the road and he was further over the hillside which made him almost impossible to see, but after waiting what seemed like an age, Roy finally woke up



He looked like he could do with a strong cup of coffee
We managed to get a few more photos of him before he decided to flop back down and sleep a little longer



Driving into Wayne's Valley we were now almost at the public road and the end of our visit. We started thinking about the variety and quality of sightings we had experienced - it had been a remarkable day for sure

But wait, what's that over there?

[Alf]

Valli is way too close for me

I would also reverse all the way back to the main camp

[Richprins]

Peej!

I like those zebra..so clean with almost no shadow stripes...wonder why that is? Beautiful!

And unheard of korhaan chick!

And wonderful lion studies, and picking up on the buff horn...you really are very clever!

Who moans about naming wild animals?

[Mel]

But wait... what's over there? Huh? You must be kidding! As if what you saw wasn't already enough for a day

Incredible that you saw Valli Moosa again! But he did make sure to show you who is the king of the road... How close did he really get to your car?
Did you notice him giving you the eye? At least it looks like that in the video

More lions And Roy looks just as deranged regarding the scratches as Gibson

Now, let's deal with that cliff hanger

[Flutterby]

Wow, you are brave to let Valli walk past like that...one shake of his head and there'd be a huge tusk through your door!

Great pics of Roy.