Imfolozi Wilderness Trail 2010- Wednesday

We heard lions roaring during the night - they sounded quite close (a bit scary but also wonderful!)- and again in the early morning. Soon after the sunrise we could hear an animal in distress. Ian said that he thought that the lions had caught a large animal and were covering its mouth and nose to suffocate it.

After breakfast we set off to try and find the kill, trying to walk as quietly as possible. About a kilometre from our camp Ian found the carcass and saw 3 lionesses and a lion nearby. The lionesses immediately ran off into the bush, the lion gave a huge roar and then also ran off. The people at the front of the line saw all the lions but Kevin and I were at the back at that point (we took turns to walk at the front) so Kevin just saw the male lion and I didn't see any of them - shame!!

Once our guides was sure that it was safe we had a closer look at the buffalo carcass. We could see the blood around its muzzle where they had suffocated it but were surprised to see that they hadn't eaten any of it, presumably they couldn't get to the carcass because of the mud that it was well and truly stuck in.

The buffalo carcass.

Already a few vultures had arrived.

Ian was hoping to find rhino today and said that we would walk uphill as they often prefer the breeze near the top of the ridges. It meant a long loop round in order to get the wind behind us but we were rewarded with several rhino sightings.

The best view was of 3 rhino about 100m away. There was a nearby fallen tree that we were all able to get behind and were able to watch them for several minutes before they ran off into the bush.

During the walk Ian would often stop and tell us about the plants, trees and tracks.

As we got nearer the top of the hill we had good views of the river valley.....

....and great views from the lookout point at the top of the cliffs.

We were able to see plenty of animals going down for their midday drink - impala, wildebeest, nyala, giraffe and zebra..

Wildebeast and impala.

Nyala.

We walked back down to the river where we had lunch in the shade of the cliffs - a few hardy souls had a 'swim' (well a lie down) in the river but most of us were satisfied with paddling as the water was quite chilly.

We could see more vultures circling above the river near the buffalo carcass, some landed on the sand and seemed to enjoy having a 'bath'.

Monday

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Wednesday

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