The Big 5 in 45 Minutes!

It was about 4 o'clock in the afternoon, we had just had a yummy high-tea and were setting off for the afternoon game drive.

In the front of the lodge were two old buffalo bulls (dagga boys), enjoying the coolness of the water. While watching the buffalo, two elephant bulls came down for a drink. My guests took some stunning photographs of the wallowing buffalo with the elephants in the background.

After 10 minutes or so of viewing the buffalo and elephant, another ranger called in on the radio that they had just found a rhino. I quickly started the Land Rover as we had to get to there as soon as we could as the property that the rhino was on only allowed us to go off-road for lion and leopard, so we could very easily lose sight of the rhino if we didn’t make it on time.

On our way to the rhino sighting I was driving parallel to a dry river bed. As we approached an open clearing alongside the river, one my guests spotted two leopards up in a Marula Tree! At the base of the Marula Tree we could also see a pride of 7 lions! AWESOME!!! The lions had obviously chased the leopards up the tree and seemed to be patiently waiting for them to come down again. I said to my guests that I was certain that both the leopards and lions would be there for a while and that we would return after viewing the rhino.

We managed to get to the rhino just in time to watch it for 5 to 10 minutes before returning to leopard and lion sighting.

All of this in just 45 minutes! That’s what amazes me so much about the bush, you can out on game drive for hours and hours without seeing much, or see a lot of game in a matter of minutes.

We must not forget about the smaller things that we often miss, like the birds, insects and trees that can often be more interesting than the "Big Five".