More Excitement at Thornybush

February 2, 2020 We told you in the last blog post that that post would probably be the last one for this trip unless something exciting happened. Well, there was lots of additional excitement created by lions and a cocktail party. Friday Lynda decided to skip the afternoon game drive, but Tim gamely(!) carried on. We were not far into our hunt when word came that another leopard had been sighted. Our ranger quickly took us to the spot where we saw the leopard as it walked through the brush. This was a different leopard from the one we saw in the morning. It was a bit bigger and more vibrantly colored then the young animal we saw napping in a tree Friday morning. It was a chaotic scene as three bush vehicles chased the poor leopard through the bush. As earlier reported, rain over the last several weeks has led to abundant growth so it was easy for the leopard to walk through the tall grass undetected. The three rangers and trackers unfortunately quickly lost the leopard. We were thrilled with our brief sightings but Tim was unable to get a picture of the beautiful cat. Good fortune was ours as we soon were parked next to 8 female lions laying in the grass. Quite frankly, while it was initially a rush to see these lions, after a few minutes of watching them sleeping it was pretty boring. As Tim discussed this with his fellow safari mates we decided that none of our friends back home would feel sorry for our boredom. So we sucked it up and spent about 20 minutes marveling at these magnificent beasts. After we left the lions, out ranger/guide/driver found a clearing in the bush where we would be safe from the resident wildlife and we had a brief picnic with beer, wine and snacks. After this break we started to make our way back towards the lodge. After this, our third game drive, we had seen just about every animal there was to see in Thornybush but we still were pleased to see the occasional elephant, giraffe and cape buffalo as well as the hundreds of impalas, wildebeasts, and zebra along the way. Lynda also decided to skip Saturday mornings game drive as she had been up at 5:00 a.m. the last two mornings and was going to have to be up that early on Sunday. She missed another amazing experience. The sunrise over the South Africa bush was breathtaking but there were few animal sightings in the first hour and a half. That changed when we found a male lion, the head of one of the two prides in Thornybush along with three lionesses. The male actually tried to mate with one of the lionesses two times. She was having none of it. It is easy to see why the lion is considered the "king of beasts" as we were all enthralled with the regal bearing of the male lion. We spent probably a half hour watching these lions. We would have stayed longer but our guide told us we had to move on so other groups could also watch. We are not sure if we have impressed upon you how close our vehicle gets to these animals. We were no more then 20 or 30 feet from the male and two of the lionesses literally walked right beside our land cruiser. Because of this only a couple of vehicles could be watching the animals at a time. If watching the lions was the "sublime" then what we saw next was the ridiculous. We don't konw how our tracker and driver saw it but the truck suddenly stopped and our guide pointed out a dung beetle moving a piece of elephant dung at the edge of the road. The dung beetle is no more then an inch long and was attempting to roll a round piece of dung the size of a softball up a hill. The beetle kept pushing and pushing the ball up the hill and just when it looked like it had made the top of the hill the ball rolled back down. This hill was in reality about a six inch incline at the edge of the road. We watched the poor beetle make at least five attempts up the hill next to the road without success. It really was comical although we doubt the beetle saw any humor in the situation. The highlight of Saturday evenings game drive was the cocktail party. Rather then each truck stopping for its own break along the way, all of the vehicles gathered together at a large clearing where the resort had set up tables with muliple snacks and beverages. We had a wonderful view of the bush and it was a beautiful night to watch a spectacular sunset. The only way to top this wonderful gathering of people who had become friends. was encountering two female lions walking along the road as night fell which is what we did. We had one final game drive Sunday morning highlighted by seeing two young male lions and later watching a group of 10 giraffes moving through the bush. Once this last safari was completed we packed our bags and began the long journey home. As a matter of fact this last posting is being written from the comfort of our house. It was a bit sad to look out to our backyard and not see the ubiquitous impalas wandering through the yard that we had seen for the last four days. As we flew home we discussed the trip and agreed it was one of our best ever. The accommodations and food were excellent and the experiences throughout the trip were exceptional. But what added to the joy of this trip was meeting like minded people who became friends and shared in the pleasure of the trip.