9th July - Last day at Garonga

This morning started off much the same. Us giving a plan of what we wanted to do - drive around slowly and see what we saw. Even the ‘Common Animals’, Josiah agreed so we were in for a better day. Not 30 seconds out of the lodge gates and “Oh, drag marks. We have to change the plan and follow this leopard.”

Now…Sarah is no professional tracker, but the footprints were the same size as fox’s and the drag marks looked to be something about the size of a chook. Her conclusion…a Jackal and a Guinea Fowl. But anyway, off went all the staff (as the other vehicle had joined us), armed with their big rifles. 15 minutes later “We lost him!”

But we had a fun 15 minutes – naming birds and the like. “Oh a lesser, short tailed, seed eating, green spotted bird”.

So off we went again. This time we saw lion tracks on the road. So of course we followed them. Two Ks straight up the road, then a right hand turn for a k, then another right hand turn for a k. Suddenly the radio crackled and word was that the lions were inside the area we had just circled. Into low gear, and into the bush, over many trees.

We arrived in time to see the two lionesses leave the cubs and stalk off in different directions. One came straight to us. Stalked around the car towards the herd of Impala near us. She burst into a run and just behind a bush grabbed an Impala. The bush exploded with the crashing of animals running everywhere then the warning cough of Impala. Impala do not run blindly from danger. They run a short distance then stop and assess, giving off strong barking/huffing warnings in case they run into another predator (lions often attack from multiple sides, chasing the prey into the claws of another lion)

Meanwhile the other lioness had charged and brought down a big Warthog. The first one, dragged her Impala under a bush and called the cubs.

But too late. The cubs had heard lioness two, calling them to the Warthog. So lioness one got to feed on her own.

We drove over to the cubs – far to close in our opinion, but we did have an amazing view of 11 clubs tearing a Warthog apart. We had never really had an appreciation of the word ‘feeding frenzy’ until we saw this. It was amazing!

All 11 heads were shoved in and chewing with the most amazing noise. A mixture of growling, grunting, purring, and occasionally savaging each other, biting and swatting too. We sat there for around 25 minutes watching it all happen. After a while a pecking order developed – often related to the age and sex of each cub. The smaller ones filled up quickly and left the group – going to the lioness to begin the clean up job. She just sat watching, then licked them clean as they came to her.

Some managed to pull off a piece – a shoulder, the head and so on and went to their own spot to enjoy.

Occasionally massive fight broke out with hard bites delivered to another’s neck and shoulders. Some would get up and move to a more prime position – involving a not so little Arggy-Bargy. One young girl sat happily munching on the large intestine. She certainly got her dose of roughage and greens that day.

There was an amazing point where about six cubs were holding firm to the meal, all just biting, pulling and standing their ground. Suddenly, it all broke apart, the two biggest cubs got the two pieces that tore apart, moved about a meter away, sat down to eat. And the other, smaller ones completely gave up. After that point, everyone was quiet. The battle was over and the victors had been decided.

By the 25 minute mark there was nothing left. Seriously nothing!  No head, no long bones, no hide. One youngster – covered in blood and mud, went to the patch of soaked dirt and kept sniffing around with a bewildered face “I know it was just here”.

What an amazing experience.

Josiah then pointed out to us that tracking really does work. It was worth abandoning “The plan”. Raina made some comment about how wonderful it was that the lions had walked around the road for such a long distance and even taken two right hand corners. And then, even though it was us following the tracks, somehow it was the other vehicles that found the spot. It definitely wasn’t the call on the radion that told us where they were, it was the tracks. Weird hey.

Either way – it was brilliant!

Our wandering brought us to two Giraffes fighting. So cool. Slow motion swinging of the neck, then bammm! Into each other.

And we saw another Cheetah.

Eventually it was time to go back to breakfast and to finish our last game drive.  We packed into the safari vehicle for our final ride to the airstrip. The small plane was buzzing around, as there were so many animals on the strip. It brought back memories of living in Cobar in central NSW, where Raina had to drive up and down the airstrip at night to remove animals and let the Air Ambulance in.

Before we could go, the safari vehicle had to do another run, chasing Warthogs and Impala away. A wonderful farewell to Africa.

We arrived at Hoedspruit airport in plenty of time. Pity our plane was three hours late. And lucky the departure lounge was great as we had 3 ½ hours wait.

We arrived in J’Burg, collected a car, booked into the hotel then drove 90 minutes in hideous peak hour traffic to a place called “Carnivores”. Yes, a game restaurant.   We ate…Impala, Kudu, Croc and Zebra among other things.

Then we went back to Wynand’s house to get our big cases, say goodbye and give back the things he had leant us.

Off to bed on the best beds we had slept on in a month!