One of the most asked question you get on a Game Drive are: What will we see on the Game drive? Carina has this answer: There is a possibility to see the following: naming all the animals that are in the park and telling the group that they have to remember that the animals are wild and that we can’t promise anything, game viewing is like gambling sometimes you win sometimes you lose.

So we started with Kruger NP seeing a lot of plains game, buffalo, hippo and elephant.  And then came the second most asked questions; Now where are the cats (lions and leopards)?  Explaining to the group: that they are mostly active in the cooler times of the day and at night. Just before lunch we went into one of the small loops next to the river and searching for animals that might be thirsty, just before leaving the loop I spotted something yellowish in a tree about 120m away in the river and there he was laying down, a male leopard sleeping up in the tree.  We watched him for a while, he posed for us standing up turning and laying down again. But no lions!  We left Kruger and headed into Zimbabwe we had an amazing experience with the Rhinos on foot in Matopos NP.  Then came Hwange NP one our way to Miombo Lodge just outside the National Park we saw a male lion that caught a buffalo on the main road. Then we had a game drive inside Hwange NP, we saw a lot of different birds and plains game.

After leaving Zimbabwe  we arrived in Botswana and the Chobe NP for a boat cruise. Everyone thought they would only be able to say that they have seen one lion for the whole trip. We saw hippos next to the boat, elephant playing and bathing in the water next to us and buffalo grazing peacefully along the banks of the Chobe.  We then where amazed when we saw a lion on the bank up ahead of us not expecting the sight that was awaiting us.

We saw a big elephant carcass and 12 lions lying around it. 2 big males, 1 young male, 2 cubs and 7 females. The youngsters played around and then came to drink water about 15m from the boat. Then came a big bull elephant and charged at the lions chasing them away from the carcass, he tried to help the dead elephant up but he just didn’t want to move, so the bull moved off, leaving the lions to continue the feast.  They came down to feed again on the carcass and one of the females even jumped on top of the carcass to look around and then jumped off to continue feeding.
So never give up if there is even the smallest of chance you might just be surprised when least expected.