Imfolozi is a 3 hour drive from our place, so the plan was to get up at 2am so that we could be at the gate when it opened, but I hadn’t planned on “enjoying” the Friday night as much as I did, therefore we only surfaced at about 3:30am and got to Imfolozi just after 7am.
Nyalazi Gate to Mpila camp produced all the usual gang, including, giraffe, buffalo and distance elephant, but the sun wasn’t through the morning clouds yet, so we just enjoyed the sightings and didn’t bother taking pics.
We could only book in at 1pm, so continued on past Mpila to the Sontuli loop, which produced an elephant family and this is always “interesting” in Imfolozi because I still think that they eat the coastal giggle twig as they are never happy to see vehicles.
Next up was a lone buffalo that had a problem in a sensitive area.
The rest of the loop was relatively quiet, so we headed on up to UBhejane hide so that we could use the loo and give the rats some time out of the car.
All the locals were hanging around at the hide.
More people started to arrive at the hide, which always makes me uncomfortable because the rats can’t sit still for long periods and when Bushpig started paging through the hide’s sighting book I realised that it was time to leave before pages got coloured in or removed, so we decided to head on down to Mpafa Hide, which hopefully had less occupants.
Next up we found a giraffe next to the road that we all thought was “faulty” from previous trips, because he pulled the same faces and wasn’t concerned about how close we got.
When we arrived at Mpafa Hide there were already about 5 cars parked outside, so we decided to continue on, but as I drove off I heard a baboon let rip from the direction of the hide, so I reversed back into the car park and ducked off down the path to the hide with Bushpig while the others waited in the car.
The pathway to the hide always gives me the creeps when I need to control Bushpig as it’s an “open” pathway and the other rats know to walk next to me, but Bushpig lost its ears again today and took off ahead of me.
I was nearly at the hide when Bushpig came flying back towards me along with a few other ex hide occupants who had big eyes, “I’m calling mommy, there’s lion”, which caused me to pull out a Bushpig rugby tackle.
An ex hide occupant who was hastily heading towards the car park explained that a large male lion had just come down to the water to drink and then 2 more females. The male had moved off, but the females were now heading towards the side of the hide, which had no door, so they were ducking for their car.
I grabbed the protesting Bushpig and slowly continued to the hide, which still had a few remaining occupants and the one guy kept saying “Is it safe”, so I guessed that the lions were still around ,but nobody seemed to know where they had gone.
The boons were still shouting their heads off though.
A lone boon next to the hide didn’t seem interested in the commotion being made by the rest and seemed more content to relieve himself on a rock in front of the hide, which distracted all for a few seconds.
Just then a movement to the left of the hide caught my eye, it was a lioness lying in the grass, so I grabbed Bushpig again and headed back to the car to call the others, who weren’t that keen to walk down the path, but eventually followed.
We stopped about 10m from the hide because the hide crowd had gathered on the pathway as the visual of the 2 females was better from there, but the lions seemed agitated by our presence as there was plenty of tail flicking going on.
I managed to snap off two blurred pics and one reasonable pic before they got up and ducked off into the bush, but I have to admit that it was a strange feeling standing there in the open watching them.
To be continued
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