8 June ( cont)

We left again at 14h40. By the way I had checked my photos of the lions from the previous day and neither of them had a nick in the ear…so that put paid to that theory of them being the same lions! We were hoping to get as far as Kij Kij and to catch the lions waking up on the way back. Not far along the road we saw a juvenile PCG walking along the road towards us. We thought he would take off but he didn’t. He strutted right up to us and boy did he have attitude. He had this mean look about him and he was definitely on a mission!

The next minute he jumped into the bushes and grabbed a rat. We really couldn’t see very well in the bushes but then he actually moved out of the bushes into an open area and we had a perfect view. SO grabbed my camera and I grabbed the video camera…..and it was rather gory I must admit. He ate that entire rat except the stomach…ugh!!!!

Yet again we had seen a kill.

http://video.tinypic.com/player.php?v=4trr288

Not long after that a car flagged us down…he was so excited. He told us that he had just had the most amazing sighting ever…….lions at the waterhole fighting over a female in heat…damn we had missed it all. Oh well , never mind I thought…at least somebody got to witness it. We continued . There were many confusing tracks all over the place and incidently there was not one other animal to be seen. We then saw a car pulled over and we slowed down. The next minute we noticed a lioness walking over the dune.

She walked towards us, crossed the road and then continued until she disappeared over another dune.
http://video.tinypic.com/player.php?v=6469jwn

We waited for a while but nothing happened. We then continued to Rooiputs. We followed fresh tracks leading into the Rooiputs camping area…..eventually we found the culprit….another lioness walking towards the dune....AND on top on the dune was a male.

We had come across a mating pair. We watched these two for quite a while. Every now and then they disappeared behind the dune…there was roaring and growling and then they would appear again. They obviously did not want an audience when it got down to the nitty gritty. They kept on looking over the opposite dune and I was convinced there was something bothering them. We could no longer sit there (we had had all this excitement to ourselves ) because we had to get back to camp.

http://video.tinypic.com/player.php?v=4lo0dpe

No sooner had we left when we came across a male lion running back towards the mating pair. He was in a hurry and he was roaring his head off. We did turn around to follow him but he disappeared over the dune.

http://video.tinypic.com/player.php?v=6gxjeyc
So once again we turned around and headed for camp. The next minute we came across two more lions running in the same direction. We decided that we could not turn around again…..they would probably just run over the dune as well. There was going to be one helluva showdown at Rooiputs and we had to go back to camp. We were well satisfied with our sightings that day (6 lions and 2 lionesses)……..we had a lovely braai ( yet again) and went for a walk to the gate. We then walked a little way along the fence towards Two Rivers. I was hoping to find an owl or two but instead we saw a jackal lying very close to waterhole with the remains of a carcass in his mouth. It looked like it could have been the backbone from a springbok. We had reached our last night in the park. I lay in bed wondering what those lions were up to …it kept my mind off the fact that we had to hit the long road home the next day.