DAY 36: A Grand Slam game drive!!!

After 36 days and 8000 kilometres on the road we were treated to a morning safari that we'll never forget! Few other places in Africa are able to produce what we dubbed the "Grand Slam of game drives". We got up at 05:15 after a very busy night in Nguchiro campsite. Everything that could trumpet, roar, whoop and bark, did so...right throughout the night! There were buffalo sleeping 10 metres from our tent and hyenas trying sniffing at our table.

We left camp at 06:00 and aimed for the scenic Moru Kopjes where we spent yesterday afternoon. We just loved the landscape there and hoped to spend the whole morning there looking for black rhinos. But no more then three kilometres outside camp the unexpected appeared in front of us in the road: 16 tiny lion cubs came ambling along towards us without their parents. Yes! Sixteen!! I'm very poor at judging age, but the majority of them were approximately four or five months old, if not less. Then there were three or four of them that were even younger, but equally brave as their older brothers and sisters. 

Only some of the lion cubs we found in the road...

Lions cubs in beautiful golden light!

The cubs were extremely relaxed, even without the protection of their mothers, and played right in front of the Hilux. We watched them for nearly two hours! The biggest bonus was that we had found them on a road that is seldom driven and as a result only three cars saw them, including us. It was a very special, private experience. It will go down as one of my best lion sightings ever!!!

To cute for words

The cubs eventually walked to a nearby kopje and disappeared amongst the rocks and bushes. Soon after we left them we came across four black-backed jackal pups that were even more curious than the lion cubs. One walked right up to Stick Cam or "Stokkam" as we now call it - this is the GoPro video camera fastened to the end of a fishing rod. The footage of the little jackal sticking his nose right into the camera is priceless!

A young black-backed jackal

Our safari continued to produce mega-sightings and by 10:30 we had seen two cheetah brothers on an open plain and a leopard female in a tree, completing the Grand Slam of cat sightings on our morning drive! This doesn't happen often.

One of two cheetah brothers

Back at camp we watched a herd of elephant walk by, ignoring us as usual. It really is a wild place this! I'm sure you've been wondering what it looks like at a public campsite in the Serengeti, so here's a look at Nguchiro:

Nguchiro public campsite, Seronera, Serengeti

Life in our campsite

As always we took an afternoon nap and then headed out on another drive, which didn't produce any significant sightings. We did see the lion cubs again, but they were hidden in tall grass. We're packing up most of our camp tonight, because tomorrow is a very important day for the Serengeti Trip. We're getting up early to...no, wait - you'll just have to read all about it tomorrow evening! 

Thanks again for all the wonderful comments! And Ben, I wish there was time to blog twice a day - believe me, we have more than enough images and stories to share...

Bye for now

Villiers

Highlight of the day:

Villiers and JI: 16 lions cubs in the road!

Lowlight of the day:

Villiers: Not being able to spend 7 months here!

JI: The lion cubs not revealing themselves again in the afternoon.