Today all of the group except my family decided to do a full day drive. They all had a full breakfast first and then went out. We went out to the south at the normal time with the hopes of wild dog. No dogs to be found. But we had a fantastic leopard encounter. I was SURE we were going to see a kill.

We followed a leopard who was obviously hunting. Lots of rough off reading. A bush buck was in the bushes and he did not see the leopard. The leopard was absolutely still and the bush buck walked toward the leopard. Then the bush buck obviously sensed something. His body language was telling the story. Stretching his neck to see better, a very obvious tremble, and some confusion. No alarm call he did not see the leopard but was obviously uneasy.

So he walked in the other direction. The leopard moved very slowly circling around and she went right behind our car. The staking leopard was great to see. She would freeze with a foot in the air and stayed that way for a long time. We lost total visual but we saw the leopard chasing the bush buck but she failed to bring down the bush buck.

Leaving the leopard Clay realized he had lost his phone. Jacque said let me retrace our steps. We all said how can you do that. We were in VERY THICK bush for quite some time. While they were trying to figure it all out on their iPhones and we are in deep brush Jacque said. “There’s the phone”. Unbelievable he got that back.

We also saw two honey badgers right at the side of the road that hissed at us, looked pretty menacing. We also had a adolescent elephant within in arms length of the vehicle. He was relaxed and wonderful to be that close.