Chobe National Park - Day 6

The Lilac Breaster Roller kept us going waiting for the Leopard to arrive. 

Despite the roaring lions and kudu barking early in the morning, it was straight to the leopard sighting from the day before with the idea to just check on it before focusing on the lion cubs of the Marsh pride. The choice of chasing that 5 minutes away against a Leopard that is 45 minutes away! We went for the Leopard on the outside chance of the Marsh pride which had cubs.

Savuti delivers another great sighting to start off day 2. 

Despite leaving early, there was a car in front of us which is most irritating, especially when they are not checking tracks but just covering grounds to the next camp. As it turns out the Leopard was on the road but moved off and settled close to the road giving us a view too. Soon others cars were getting impatient and started driving off road and the Leopard moved but we had a good sighting and were here for the day and the Leopard had a kill!

Lost it and finally walked off. 

What followed was a frustrating hour of lion tracking but no lions. We worked out that they'd been to the waterhole but there was no sign of them still being around so we suspected that they were laying up somewhere in the bush near to the water for the day. 

We headed back to the leopard sighting but there was no sign of the leopard, only his kill up a tree. We decided to wait him out and finally about an hour and a half later, it paid off. He walked straight out the surrounding bush towards us before heading straight back into the bush he'd been in the previous day.

When he finally arrived, it was straight in front of us. 

And so the wait began. Cars came and went but still he didn't move in sight of his kill but refusing to move out the bush to get up the tree. We also had a theory that because there was a car parked directly in his path he refused to move. Whether the theory was correct or not we don't know because the car wasn't going anywhere.

Lovely head-on shot

By midday, the leopard hadn't moved, it was hot and we were the only cars left. So we gave up and headed to a new section of the park called Rhinovlei. It goes through a mashland that only floods with seasonal rain or when the Savute channel flows. Now it was dry as a bone but there is a waterhole that we wanted to have lunch at. The waterhole is pumped and with that came the elephants - herd after herd of small family groups with big bulls in between.

Rhinovlei waterhole, the families were here.

It was a lovely scene and luckily there were some trees to park under and watch the activity. So we had our lunch and a nap in the heat all while the elephants splashed around and drank their fill. The only problem was that Cheryl manage to get bitten by a safari ant on her toe and for anyone that has gone through that knows how painful it can be.

Nursing her toes that was bitten by a safari ant. 

Rested, we had planned to go north back towards the camp for the evening game drive and hope to catch the lions that we'd heard roaring the whole night but first it was a quick trek back to the leopard. 

Unbelievably the leopard was still under the bush in the same position we'd left him but the carcass had moved and been eaten. He'd gone up the tree and eaten while we weren't there - essentially our lunch had cost us his lunch!

 Despite missing the kill, this guy gave us plenty of time. 

We didn't plan to wait for him this time so instead made our way back to the northern part next to our camp and crossed the steel bridge hoping to find the lions. Even the lions seemed in scarce supply and we could see game drive vehicles also looking around the same area so we figured the lions had been in the morning. 

What had changed was a dead elephant near the waterhole. It seemed a large female and she must have died in the early hours of the morning which would explain the distress calls of elephants we'd heard overnight. No cat luck so we made our way towards the hills that are dotted around Savuti. 

The terrain looks like good leopard territory and there was plenty of plains game around. It heads to the Savute channel which is now a dry river bed and that too looked promising. The only problem is that getting out of the river bed requires driving up the steep sandy bank but with some effort we managed to get up and started heading towards Kudu hill via some windy roads. 

That's when we realized that Sudesh wasn't behind us. Fearing that he'd taken a wrong turn we backtracked and found him halfway up the bank. He hadn't been able to get enough momentum to make the rise and was stuck in the soft sand.

The sand is thick and will test your sand driving skills. 

Snatch strap and shackles out, hooked up to both cars and Dru was able to drag him out the sand but it took quite an effort thanks to the long track of soft sand. Recovery done, we headed around the hill but no cats were around. Eventually we meandered back to the main waterhole near the camp and looked around there.

Lion or no lion, this guy got his drink. 

The game drive vehicles that had been creeping around were now all gathered in one place so we went to investigate. As we were driving up we could see both the wildebeest and impala were on alert and sure enough a lioness was walking across the road.

Know when the game spots a predator, they will see it before us. 

We quickly positioned ourselves to line up the lioness with the wildebeest in the background but soon she was up and contact calling. She started walking and we made the call to get ahead of the cars assuming that she'd be walking to the waterhole.

Where were her Sisters and the rest of the Northern Pride. 

She lined up beautifully with the backlit sky all the while calling but hearing nothing in response. Again we decided to get ahead and went straight for the waterhole hoping that she'd go drink and wed be able to photograph her.

Playing with the fading light. 

The light was failing but after sitting around for a bit, she did exactly what we'd hoped and drank in front of us allowing us some nice shots of her drinking. By not it was after sunset and with about 5 minutes before we needed to be in the campsite we raced off and were back in camp in time.

The Black Winged Stilt photo bombed all the shots. 

Fire on, refueling needed to be done in addition to the usual camp chores so it took quite a while before we could relax with a glass of wine and reminisce about the day.

More of the magical Savuti sunsets.