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| Highlight of the trip! |
Every evening we sit under the stars with a glass of wine, listen to the sounds of the bush and decide for the route for the next morning. And as usual, Wamilombe was at the top of our list. It’s just too difficult to let it go knowing that if we see something first thing in the morning it would be special.
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| Little bee-eater |
But it was testing our patience as it had been 3 days
without an early morning sighting. But again, we put our faith in it and headed
straight there to check out the plain, passing the bridge at the gate with the
same self-drive car we’d seen the previous day shooting the sunrise again.
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| Puku ram |
Our plan was to drive the main road that skirts the plain and see if any animals were reacting to a potential predator, then do the small adjacent loop to see if the lions were around (really need to name this place), and then back to the main plain, driving through it to catch anything we’d missed.
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| Crocodile basking at a waterhole |
Driving on the main road gave us nothing, as did the little
loop and we weren’t holding out much hope, but as we got back to the main area,
a cat like animal was walking in the distance across the plain. A quick stop to put the binoculars on – cat!
Even better – leopard! And even better than that – with something in its mouth!
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| First sighting of the leopard and the monkey |
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| Head on shots of a leopard with a kill! |
She was heading off the pan along an elephant path and we so we decided to get back onto the main road and catch her heading towards us on the elephant path – hopefully!
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| Straight up the elephant path as predicted |
And it
worked, she was so chilled she walked directly towards us along the path and up
the hill to where we were parked, crossed the road in front of our car and down
the other side, where she ambled to the nearest bush and proceeded to lay down
with her monkey prize – it was unbelievable! And a bit of relief that Wamilombe
had paid off exactly as we had hoped!
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| She was unfazed by our presence |
She had picked a nice spot to eat her breakfast, but unfortunately it was a bit dark in the bush for good light photos, so we chilled out drinking coffee and watching her devour her monkey.
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| Deciding where to eat |
We spent about half an hour with her before
the first car arrived and soon the news was out, so soon after that we left the
other safari vehicles to the sighting knowing that we’d had the best of it this
morning. It was the first time we had seen a leopard eat a monkey and it simply
crunched through everything, starting with the head and even chomped the arms
and hands.
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| A good breakfast for the leopard |
Nothing else matched the highlight for the morning, although
we did catch some nice birds, buffalo and elephant. On a tip on lions we’d gone across the main
road to the Luangwa Wafwa area, but despite a safari vehicle having just seen
them, we just couldn’t locate them. They
had just melted into the bush and all the safari eyes couldn’t find them, so by
mid-morning we were back at the camp for the afternoon.
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| Looks like a good joke was shared |
This time it was a bit different however, as Dru had a conference call that he couldn’t get out of despite being on leave. It was due to take place between 2 and 3pm which meant that by the time the call was done the afternoon drive would be a bit late. We’d probably only get to the park after 4pm and since the light would be fading by about 5.15pm it didn’t make sense to go for a game drive ourselves.
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| Grey heron |
Instead, we opted to do a night drive with the lodge, since we’d already paid the park fees for the day and it would give us an opportunity to check the park out at night, since the drive is from 4-8pm. Surprisingly, we’ve never done a night drive before. Because we self-drive, we always need to be out the park by closing time at 6pm and since for us it’s all about catching nature during the day, we had never bothered.
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| Big calm bull elephant |
So, this was a circumstance driven opportunity and we decided to take advantage of it. We just hoped that we didn’t get stuck with guests that had never been on safari before otherwise we’d be stopping for every impala 😉
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| Fishing in the Luangwa river in the heat of the day |
And so of course we got stuck with a first-time safari goer 😉 Luckily, we only stopped for a few impalas and some common birds in the beginning and then we could look for the night creatures. Unfortunately, by the time we stopped for beer and popcorn we hadn’t caught anything of significance, but as it got darker, we were optimistic.
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| Puku chilling |
And we were soon rewarded with a sighting of a
bushbaby. We’d heard them previously in
the campsite, but they’re almost impossible to see, so nice to get a sighting
of them. And then soon after it was a
genet – again, a creature we only see at night around the campsite (in fact,
there is a resident one in our camp we see regularly) and another genet. They seem to be quite common once the sun
goes down.
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| Baby giraffe running - our first sighting of our night drive |
And soon, we turned into a road that a multitude of cars in
front of us – the lions had been found.
But they were far off road, about 4 of them including a male. Off-road driving isn’t allowed in South
Luangwa and they plant wildlife officials randomly in the safari vehicles to
make sure that the guides don’t ignore the rule.
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| Lions heading for us |
In this case, there were multiple vehicles off-road to see
the lions, but there was a safari vehicle waiting with a wildlife official in
it and as each one came back to the road he would step out and chastise them,
or give them a warning – we’re not sure which.
While we couldn’t get close to the lions it was quite amusing to watch
each vehicle get a warning until the last 2 vehicles just drove off quickly in
a different direction to avoid the official.
Of course, they all know each other, so it produced much laughter from
the rest of the guides and guests.
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| She was intent on heading straight towards us |
With all the vehicles having left, it seemed like the lions
were planning to move as they were starting to groom and yawn, so our guide
made a good call to anticipate where the lions were moving. And sure enough, out of all the vehicles, we
stopped at exactly the right spot to catch the first of the lions coming out of
the dark and into the multiple spotlights trained on them.
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| She crossed the road just in front of us |
Everyone was waiting for the male to arrive and soon he made
an appearance – walking straight towards us before crossing behind our car and
disappearing into the dark behind the females.
Pretty exhilarating!
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| The male soon followed |
There was a bit of back and forth between the guides in the
local language but when we heard the word “Wamilombe” we knew it could only be
leopard. And sure enough, soon we were
hurtling towards the plain that gave us such a good sighting that morning.
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| Lions look even more intimidating at night |
We arrived to bunch of cars lined up and not a sound from
anyone. Only the red lights were on – a
filter on the spotlight to produce infrared lights so that it doesn’t affect
the antelope. And looking closely with
the red lights, about 20 meters from the herd of impala was a crouching
leopard.
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| Infrared light on the leopard so advantage isn't given to either the cat or her potential prey |
She was hunting, so close to the impala who were completely oblivious to her. It was a tension filled moment, but soon it was time to leave so that we could make the gate in time for the 8pm closing. Well, all the quiet sitting and waiting ended abruptly when it was time to leave.
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| Apparently infrared is ignored when the cars need to go |
Suddenly the red lights were replaced with
the normal spotlights and all the cars drove right up to the leopard for the
guests to get a close up – so much for leaving the cat in camouflage! Having said that, we found out the next day
that it made no difference as the leopard had pulled down an impala shortly
after that.
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| Light didn't make a difference, shortly after we left she made a kill |
After that quick interlude we sped off to the gate and made
it before closing and back to the campsite.
The biggest problem we found with the night drive from a logistics point
of view was now we still had to make dinner and other camp chores, which meant
we only got to bed closer to 11pm than our normal early bed time.
Still, doing the night drive was an interesting experience and while we wouldn't be chomping at the bit to do it every time, it was something to consider if we couldn't do a drive ourselves.
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| Nice bonus of a bloody hyena as we finished our night drive |
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