15 & 16 October

Yesterday afternoon's game drive began on a high note as we had Xivambalane at a watering hole just east of the lodge, as he has been scarce for the past few days we were glad to see him again. We then had a breeding herd of buffalo north of the lodge calmly feeding. We also had a big bull elephant taking advantage of all the new green shoots on the trees not too far from there. Then after a long absence we were lucky enough to see the two Matimba male lions. We viewed them until they disappeared into Mala-Mala. Just as we made it back to the lodge it started pouring with rain and the winter drought was broken, and we had a very nice 8mm thanks to mother nature.

This morning it was raining leopards in the Northern Sabi Sands and started off with some plains game close to the lodge. Then the call came over the radio of Bahuti up a tree with a kill. We made our way there just to find him sleeping close to his kill in the tree, as there was a hyena sleeping under the tree close by waiting for a few scraps. As we made our way back home we bumped into Inkanyeni with her two cubs eating an impala up and under a tree, not far from the lodge. We had great photo opportunity from them. We saw one off the cubs had a big scar on the right hand side. We found out that they had an encounter with lions on the northern side where we cant drive. The wound looks clean and hopefully it will heal quickly