APRIL 12th - The rhinos moved on before we did our afternoon drive. Sydney, our spotter, tracked them by foot until he saw them. They are massive and decided to have a mud bath just after we caught up to them. These are white rhinos although you wouldn't know that by their color. We may go south by the river tomorrow and look for black rhinos.
We carried on and came across a huge elephant tearing up trees and eating them. We have now seen all of the big 5 at Sabi Sabi. There was the usual assortment of animals as we drove around. Time for our sundowners so we moved on to a quiet place to see the sunset.
On our way back to camp we had a flat tire so we all had to jump out of the vehicle while Terry and Sydney changed it. A very short distance after we pulled back on the trail we encountered a hyena moving quickly towards us. We turned to follow him and realized he was meeting up with his fellow hyena who must have been watching us while the tire was being changed. Further along we came across another hyena.
APRIL 13th - Our camp was visited during the night by the female lions and a male leopard. One of the lions got separated from the pack and we could hear her calling them as we left on our drive. She was very close to the camp so we changed plans about searching for black rhinos and decided to follow the lion. As we were coming upon her we passed the male leopard but he was camouflaged so well it was hard to see him. We watched and listened to the lion for a while. One of the other trackers spotted the rest of the prides tracks and it was determined that they had moved out of the area so we gave up the search. We then came across the male leopard who is the father of the female one we watched our first day. He is a magnificent specimen. At one point we were parked by the trail and as he passed the jeep I could have touched him - he was that close. We moved on to give other jeeps a chance to join the view. We came across a herd of buffalo and there were several very small ones in the crowd.
It was getting close to 9 am so we started back to camp but the chef had a surprise for us. Just outside the camp she and her staff provided us with breakfast in the bush. We were greeted with champagne, scrambled eggs, fried eggs, bacon, sausage, muffins, juice and all sorts of fruit. A great way to have breakfast on our last full day on safari.
Terry, again with a loaded rifle, Len and I went on a trail walk while the Barcelona crew went to visit the village. Then it was time for siesta, lunch and showers before our afternoon game drive.
Pictures -1 - the rhino
2 - the elephant destroying a tree
3 - video of lion - no lion roars in this but I'll attach others next time
4 -6 - leopard on the move
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