6th July  - Garonga

Life is very regimented at Garonga with zero room for flexibility.  They come and knock on your door at 6.15am. You then need to be at the lodge having a cup of tea by 6.30 to leave at 6.45. No food, breakfast is latter! That is the way it is!

There are usually about half a dozen vehicles out form the different lodges in the vicinity and they all communicate on the radio to talk about what they see.  Word came that someone had found a lion pride. When we got there, there were 13 lions. Two mature lionesses and 11 cubs – 2 at 10 months (the first litter still travelling with mum), 4 at 6 months old and 5 at 4 months old.  They would lie in the sun for a while then get up and walk 500meters to a kilometer.  Then they would find another lovely sunny spot and lie down again. Then off they would go again. This happened about six times. When they would move off, they would all straggle along, some playing, some staying behind then hurrying to catch up.

They began to cross a track in front of us. Suddenly one of the adults barked an order and 11 cubs all hit the deck, most in a lovely straight line. The two adults crouched and went in opposite directions. They circled a herd of Impala that we could see. We could see the Impala milling around, seeming mostly calm but every now and then stirring a bit. Many minutes later one of the adults attacked and everything exploded, Impala were running everywhere and snorting in warning. The cubs, in their excitement, jumped up to watch, but not one bottom left the ground. Moments latter a signal must have been given and the cubs stood up, milling around but still remained in place until the adults returned. They then headed off having missed the kill.

We had seen lions hunting!  Tick, Brilliant.

We returned to the lodge for breakfast – really brunch as this place only feeds you twice a day – a bit strange! As we were sitting there eating our brunch – guess who came to the waterhole below????

Our 13 lion buddies!

They must have looked up and though “Bloody Hell, thought we got rid of them!”

After brunch some new guys arrived.  A really lovely Mum and 10yo from Jackson Holes (where we spent Christmas in 2008). They had arrived but their luggage was still in Washington DC. They went to bed having flown a long way, including a day in Paris as a stop off. We went out on afternoon Safari.

We watched a lone Elephant in a river bed ripping out the roots of a huge tree, growing in the bank. Then the hippos. In the middle of this Bushvelt was a deep river, fill of Hippos. We hopped out of the car and walked to the river bank. The guide tried to make it sound really scary, giving us a huge lecture about hand signals – this means stop, this means freeze. He loaded the rifle and off we went. By this stage we were begin to realize that Josiah, our guide was a bit of a tosser –very taken with the theatrical side of guiding. As if they were going to take a group of tourists into danger. Just as we were about to walk off a bug flew into the neck of Jasper, the pommy guy with us. He screeched, jumped so high and we are sure nearly poo-ed himself. We all, including Jasper, laughed so hard. The hippos were well below us down and steep bank. There was not a chance they ever came up here. Totally safe – but great.  They did a lot of roaring and blowing. It was fantastic. The noise is just so loud and deep. Quite amazing.

Another magnificent sunset was spent at an old Mica mine.