Geoff & Rita's 2013 South Africa Tour: Day 2 - An Afternoon with the King of Beasts

At 15:00 a group 11 of us were loaded into a van for the 20 minute drive to Phinda where we were put into 2 groups and headed out to see if we could find Lions. As we headed out, the rain had stopped but it was still cool. Phinda is over 10 times larger than Zulu Nyala with over 56,000 acres encompassing seven distinct habitats, including sand forests, mountains, wetlands and river valleys. The diversity of landscapes, the scale of the terrain and the variety of animals, including the Big 5 makes Phinda one of the very best wildlife preserves in the world. However, our ranger and tracker knew we were there to see lions and they knew where to go. Sure enough after about 35 minutes of driving through rugged terrain a male Lion was spotted stalking a couple of Giraffes. I could not believe how close they took us to the Lion. Within a few feet!!! And they slowly followed the Lion as it walked through the grasslands for 20 minutes maneuvering the vehicle to give us better photo ops. The Lion did not seem to mind our presence. It never moved faster than a slow walk and a couple of times even sat down and rested. The ranger received a call on his radio that a pride of lions had been spotted a few kilometers from our location so off we went. What an unbelievable and surreal experience this was. The pride consisted of an adult female mother, 4 of her juveniles (3 female and 1 male) and 3 male cubs still breastfeeding. The lions were sleeping and relaxing after a recent kill with the three cubs either breastfeeding or playing. We were with them for a little over 30 minutes before heading back to the lodge. What a wonderful way to end our day. Rita and I will never forget this amazing experience.