Day 11 – Karongwe Game Reserve

This morning we were woken up at 5 am for our safari drive which started at 5:30.

We had time for a quick shower and coffee and then we were off to the safari vehicles. Our guide Jack and Ramondo our tracker were waiting for us and once the six of us were in the car we were off.

Today we are hoping to see leopards and lions.

Our first encounter (apart from wildebeest and antelope) was a crash of Rhinos. They were so close as they walked in front of our car. There was a little tussle as the ones in front stopped and the ones behind bumped it in to them, I felt a little nervous that they might spook but they were ok and continued to walk off through the bush. Jack our driver explained how we get the names white and black rhino. The white rhino was the weit lipped rhino which the British took to mean the white rhino.

The next thing we saw was a memory of elephants (new word for a group of elephants) which included a very large bull elephant. The other group saw them from a different angle and said some of them seemed a little angry and they were a bit nervous they may charge.

From here we went to a river bank where we spotted a small group of lions with a female, 2 juvenile males and a couple of cubs.

After we had taken some pictures we drove around looking for more animals when Jack our guide got a call on the radio and we headed back to the river bank, where we saw the same group eating a warthog they had just caught.

The rest of the day up until 4pm is free time. Stu and the others went on a bushwalk, however I was a little unwell so I finished my blog and had a lie down. While I was there I watched a whole group of animals wander down to the creek in front of our room.

During our afternoon drive we were reunited with the lion family who were relaxing after eating warthog and then had drinks with hippos in the dam next to our stop. We had come across a leopard but it was scared for by the baboons and ran away and hid.