4th May 2000
Again before getting up to Tjololo we bumped into the River Rocks pride of lion in the south. They were hunting after dark. We stayed with them as the Mala Mala rangers were with Tjololo and he was heading southeast and would soon be in Kruger.
In the 4 or 5 hours we were with the lions they made 3 kills. First a young impala, a scrub hare and then another young impala, but we weren’t able to capture any on film. The adult female was responsible for all the kills but soon had them taken over from her by the young male. The trials of motherhood or just straight brute force. The first impala disappeared amongst the 4 lions in some 8 minutes leaving only a bloodstain on the grass.
Soon after the last kill the rains started. Luckily it didn’t rain very hard although the lightening was very impressive, striking at least once a second.
At dawn monkeys chattering alerted us to a male leopard that had just killed an impala. It was nervous and soon dragged its kill away into the thick undergrowth.
Back at camp on my daily run had an adrenalin rush as I bumped into 3 elephant. Just raising my voice at them soon had them barging away through the undergrowth. It’s upsetting to see such a large and wonderful animal to be so terrified by just the sound of a human’s voice. What have we done too them? Is it a memory of events decades ago? Or is it just something unfamiliar? I like to think the latter.
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