The Kirks

Today was a big lion day.  We joined our ranger Phill on a cold wet morning and while we were sipping coffee the tracker Dali noticed some tiny specks of white about 10km away.  We brought out the binoculars and indeed it was three female lions.  So we jumped in the vehicle and headed out into the reserve in search of lion.  It appears that the “done thing” is to refer to plural animals as the singular.  You don’t find tracks of “hyenas” you find the tracks of “hyena”.  Maybe it comes from the old hunting days.  The famous phrase “the big five” which is so heavily used in the marketing literature for game reserves also comes from the old hunting days.  The big five - lion, leopard, elephant, rhino and buffalo - were the animals that were most likely to kill you while you were trying to kill them.  Cape buffalo are actually quite boring looking animals but due to their propensity for coming back and goring you if you didn’t shoot them first time, they’re in the “big five”.

We stopped off at one of the big dams to view some tiny ears and eyes in the water which were hippo but we didn’t see much more than that.  There were ostrich and a beautiful black backed jackal on the way.  I think we’re getting better at spotting animals.  There’s a search pattern for animals which you don’t have when you first get here but over time, you get better at spotting things.   There are an extraordinarily large number of antelope like animals here in South Africa.  They range from the tiny duiker who are about the size of a household cat all the way up to an Eland which weighs just under a tonne and is as big as a horse.  There are a lot of evolutionary niches for fast vegetation browsers and the antelope have filled a lot of them.  Kudu, springbok, gemsbok (oryx), nyala, haartebeest (the animal in the picture on the right), …there’s literally 20 or 30 of these animals.  It’s easy to get focussed on the big carnivores or the elephants and hippos but these animals are quite stunning.

We found the three lionesses with their eight cubs up on a high bluff on the other side of the Great Fish River.  There wasn’t a lot going on and once again, the lions were sleeping.  So we drove up over the high ground through some unusual landscapes.  The Kwandwe game reserve used to be farm land and it’s only gradually returning to its natural state.  When you come across signs of farming it’s very odd.  We got a great view of Ecca Lodge where we’re staying from the other side of the reserve (hurrah for long focal length lenses).  The lodges are quite well designed to fit in with the landscapes.

On the way back we came across a different pride of lion.  There is an old male, an older female, two young lionesses and a two year old male.  The young male is just at the stage where he’s becoming a threat to the older male and so there was a lot of slinking around going on and the old male growling at the young male.  It’s all a bit incestuous since the young lionesses are the old males daughters and the young male’s sisters but both the male lions are attempting to mate with them.  According to Phill they don’t worry too much about the inevitable genetic degradation for the first three generations but once it’s gone on too long, they have to move the male lions to other reserves and import new males to make sure that recessive traits don’t take hold.   After a huge brunch, we headed back out to find the three lionesses and the two male lions again. 

On the way there, I finally managed to get a picture of a warthog.  Warthogs are very common in this region but they’re incredibly skittish.  As soon as you stop the vehicle, they zoom off into the bush with their tails sticking up.  They’re very tough little animals though and Disney really captured both the personality and the movements when they drew Pumba in the lion king.

We found the male lions and two of the lionesses in the middle of an old pecan orchard.  Once again, the young lion was keeping his distance and the old lion was guarding the young lioness who was about to come into oestrus.  It was slightly worrying to know that there was another lion somewhere in the vicinity but we couldn’t see her.  Then Phill, who had impressed us with his “ferrari safari” approach to driving, got the vehicle stuck!  Suddenly everything got very tense.  Neither Phill nor Dali was terribly happy to get out of the vehicle and even though we bounced up and down trying to move it, it was stuck.  We were behind a large bush and so we had no idea where the lions were and there was the ever present worry about the one lion that we hadn’t seen.  Clearly radioing for help would have been a insult to Phill’s driving experience so eventually Phill and Dali got out the huge high lift jack and jacked up the front of the vehicle and we got out.  Much relief all round.

As the sky darkened, we drove up round the high savanna and saw a black wildebeest going completely potty as it ran around its territory just for the fun of it.  We also got a good shot of another of the antelope species:  the national animal of South Africa, the springbok.  We stopped near a waterhole and Hannah and Isabelle learned some tracking from Phill and Dali.  Springhare and hyena tracks were found.  Trish and I had a welcome gin and tonic and the sun set slowly over the bush.

Home for a long enjoyable dinner with Phill who entertained us all evening with alternating funny and gruesome stories of the other guests.  Some who had been funny and some who had…err…been eaten.  Phill assured us that this didn’t happen very often but after the incident with the vehicle getting stuck, it was food for thought.

This was our last night in the South African bush and in the past 7 days, we’ve seen some incredible sights.  There is something different about seeing animals in the wild compared to a zoo or indeed compared to the Discovery Channel.  The fabulous guides and trackers make it easier to find them but it’s still an adventure…