Thursday 26th September 2013

Good decision to go to bed early last night, firstly I missed Group A getting back to camp to report their fantastic haul which culminated in not one leopard but two.

More importantly it meant I made it to bed, others had to wait several hours until the bull elephant had moved on. When I went to bed I could hear him breaking branches in the thicket. He was getting closer and closer but I eventually fell to sleep.

I woke about thirty minutes later, he was now feeding right outside my tent. I could hear his every breath, when he chewed and the grains of sand shifting under his feet. It was thrilling but not scary, but it may have been a different matter if he had started playing with my tent. It took me some time to get to sleep and I was I had a large receptacle in my tent.

This afternoons drive saw us bag giraffe, eles and three lions, the latter of which was very satisfying. To see the lions we had to go off road into the thick bush. Getting out again was a major challenge, it was dark and the terrain was terrible. It gets your heart pimping knowing that there are three lionesses stirring about a hundred yards behind you.

We were almost home when we came across the eles bulls again. There was no way to get past and it started to get serious with one flapping its ears and starting to come towards us. This was whilst another one was making his way up our flank. Our diversion to avoid the elephants as well as the battle to get back on road from the lions made us an hour late for dinner.