Lions home run: Video

Not surprisingly dawn found me with the mating couple again.

Manyari and her man were on Banyini with his brother, but no sign of the young female.

Although the boys still have slightly sagging tummy’s, Manyari is looking lean and rather exhausted. Of course not surprisingly.

Lots of evidence of elephant around the place and I eventually picked up a number of bulls south of Banyini. At midday they were all resting in the mopanie woodland and I left them to go check out Banyini.
On the open area was this bull with fairly big ivory. He was walking towards me from a ways off, so I cut the engine and got ready to take photographs.

He kept coming, I snapped away and he moved on past. But then he suddenly turned and came head on. What I hadn’t noticed was he was in musth.
He kept coming and I was convinced he was going to stop short. But not this guy. He hit the bull bar full on and didn’t stop there. He kept pushing.
Suddenly I realised this dude meant business. I slammed the car in reverse, turned the ignition key on and using him pushing me backwards I jump started the car. He kept pushing and now my senses kicked in to over drive and adrenalin took over.
I floored the accelerator and at high revs was careering away from the elephant in reverse. Well so I hoped but glancing to the front, the bull was still running at full speed pushing on the bulbar. How long could he keep this up? How fast could he go?
He must have pushed me at least a hundred meters and then I seemed to be getting away, but still he chased another hundred meters before giving up.
By now I was a little shaken, but didn’t want him to think he had got away with it and that he might in future again charge vehicles. So I drove towards him slowly. He backed up to a tree and I stopped about 15m away. We watched each other for ages and eventually he sauntered off.

I moved on to Banyini pan and took a breather in the shade. About half an hour later the guy was there wallowing. I approached him again and this time he backed off. Thankfully.
I’ve seen this bull before but don’t really know him and it must just be that he’s in musth that’s making so agro. Those hormones sure mess with the dudes.
I’m just hugely thankful to my faithful Toyota to stand up to the lad and to perform when I really really needed it!
All I can say is I’m so so grateful to still be in one peace and I don’t take these sort of experiences lightly. They’re a huge part of the learning curve and one must always see them as that. Also it serves as a reminder to me what damage these huge beasts could do and helps keep me from becoming too blasé in their presence.

Oh! And I definitely wasn’t hanging around to film this whole incident.
At Simbiri dam I was happy to find this herd of cows coming in to drink. I thought I’d be nervous of elephants, but being with the cows I felt so content and all was just great.