Update on game drives. I am going to post periodically so I do not lose this along the way.

Ken is trying to post some pictures from our game drives that will go with the reports below.

Leopards!
Driving down the road we saw a male impala sounding the alarm call with great frequency. So we went to the area that the impala was facing. Very quickly we spotted a leopard right next to the road. It was a young male. He started to move and we went off road following him as he moved through the bush not always easy but our ranger was very good. We called our other vehicle with Art, June, Marvin and Ellen. The leopard gave us some beautiful shots and at one point came out of the grass and headed right to our vehicle. I could have stretched out and touched him he was so close.
Suddenly the ranger pointed behind us and there was a female leopard. She kept getting closer and the male moved forward. At this time the other vehicle arrived so they saw both leopards.
The two leopards got fairly close and the male started hissing and the female walked off. The ranger said that this was the female's son that had separated from her some time ago. The male leopard gave us one more wonderful pose as he perched on top of a mound and we got a nice shot of him with our other vehicle in the background. After about 45 minutes with the leopard we bid farewell and moved on.

Elephant!
Last night we saw a LOT of elephant. A large herd and they blocked our path two separate times coming home. The best elephant of the day was a BIG bull in full musk and boy could we SMELL it - yuk does that REALLY attract female elephants? He was on the side of the road with one of our vehicles in front of him and our vehicle behind him. Glaring at us and obviously not too happy. Some head shaking and general agitation. He was interesting as he had been swimming and he was only dry on the top of his head and the rest of his body was wet. Finally he moved between our vehicles to the other side of the road to join the herd and Ken got a picture of him. Not the best shot but it shows the experience.

Lion!
Last night we saw four of the Manyelti coalition of lions, there are six altogether. Today just driving down the road we spotted two male lions. They did not seem to happy to see us snarling a bit and Ken got a great shot of that. As we were sitting there we heard the tell tale sound of mating lions. We drove back and found the pair and followed as they were on the move. We were not able to see them doing the deed it appeared he was trying but she had a headache.
The plan is to go back to this area tonight and see if we can find the mating pair again she may have lost her headache by this evening. When we got back to the two other males we managed to get a shot of the other vehicle with the lion right next to the land cruiser.

We saw zebra, wildebeast, cape buffalo, kudu and of course impala.

We just need the rhino to complete the big five and we did see rhino tracks today and heard when we arrived the rhino was good right now so I am sure that will be in the cards.

The lodge works well.
The rooms are nice and very spacious and remind me of the rooms at Ebony lodge at Singita. The entire lodge is linked by raised walkways something I always like. Food has been excellent and the rangers and trackers have a good sense of humor and are doing a nice job.

There does not appear to be as plentiful game here as the Sabi Sands/Leopard Hills area. However what is nice here is that there are fewer vehicles so when you get a great sighting like this you can stay. During the whole time with the two leopards it was just our two vehicles and one other. Same thing with the lions and elephants we have seen, at no time did we NEED to leave it is a nice to be able to stay as long as you wish. The negative to this is that there are fewer eyes looking to spot things so more driving around looking.

When you get a great sighting in sabi sands it is a busy area and you have to move out to give other vehicles time at a sighting. However you see more things and less driving with no sightings.

Very hard to get the "perfect balance" of game vehicles. Both situations have their positives and negatives. This has been great so far as we are getting such great sightings ans staying so long that everyone is very happy.

Coming back for breakfast we saw some very active monkeys and Ken took a shot of a young one that was very curious.

We just received an email from Susan at Leopard Hills. I guess their plane was delayed leaving JNB so they did not get out on their game drive until 5.00 pm. She said they saw mating leopards
and the alpha female wild dog going into the den and the five other wild dogs of the pack. MAYBE this will finally be my time --- I get there tomorrow.