Dinner that night was taken with the other hunting party (from Sacramento CA) their PH and the camp managers. All nice folks, very pleasant dinner and conversation. Certainly a different attitude to hunting than I, and I saw this a bit especially back at the Lodge in SA talking to groups heading through, some are here to hunt, that would be me, some are here to shoot this, this, this , this and oooooh that to... but I digress. The camp managers were most interested in hearing about the elephant as they have not seen any (the sign is there but they have not seen one) in around 5 months. Happily showed them my pics...

Back to bed withthe warning that it would be wise to wander around too much during the night as the lions have been coming in closer and closer, sure, no problem... now for that 150yd walk through the dark to get back to my chalet !!!!! Slept REALLY well I must say (maybe that expensive bottle of red the nice folks from the US were sharing helped ).

We had arranged with the camp that we would drop off one of their guys at a maintenance shed a few kms from the main camp and here would collect another of their staff who would drive us out in our vehicle and drop us off back in the area we were the afternoon before (yes he was that nice of a Kudu), he was one of their few English speakers as well. Once he dropped us down near the water he would head back up and park up on a track a few KMs away so we could spend the morning hunting our way back up from the water. Driving out from camp we had our two guys plus one of theirs in the back, Obano had my rifle and pack (containing my camera - [censored] [censored] [censored] [censored]). About 1km from camp in the first light we came to a small dam wall, there laying on the top of the wall, looking at us, paws folded under their chins were two small lion cubs... they looked adorable and we slowed to look...as we moved just past the [censored] wall there was a very loud sound, a very cranky sound, there was Mrs Cat and Mr Cat standing....Mrs Cat was clearly not at all happy about our presence and expressed it... she was snarling, teeth bared and making all kinds of cranky sounds.... Mr Cat just stood and looked between her and us... the guys swing my pack in the window to me and I tried to fish the camera out.

I was watching through the driver window past Boet and a bit out the back cabin window, there were in fact three cubs that were making their way from the dam to the tree line behind Mrs Cat. She alternated between looking at them and turning and snarling at us. One small saviour here at this point despite assuming that as soon as the cubs were into the trees Mr and Mrs Cat would follow, Boet didn't shut of the truck, he also suggested I not get out to take pics (no shyte Sherlock !!!!!!!). At this point the adult cats were about 30yds away. Once the three cubs made the trees something strange happened.... Mrs Cat spun back to us and let out a sound I will never forget, something well past angry !!!!!!! The next words I remember were "f%#k she is going to come". and that she did.... like a bloody rocket (the male was just loping along behind her and parallel to us). We accelerated (that thing about not shutting off the vehicle probably saved one or two of the guys in the back) but she kept pace and made ground for around 120yds, she was trying but could not get enough ground or speed on us to leap, thankfully..... !!!!!! I was watching through the back window (I remember Obano starting to move my rifle around as well) and then she peeled off and into the trees. we drove onto the maintenance shed a few KMs up the road and stopped.

To say the guys in the back were rattled was an understatement !!! I pointed out one had turned WHITE (he made a turned black joke at me after an hour crawling through ash/burned grass back on Cape Buff). I never did get my camera out as it all just happened so bloody fast...

So we dropped off our passenger and collected our driver... He got us down onto the approach to a dam and left us, he explained where he would be and where he would come to if he heard a shot (I suspected correctly that he would not hear any shots as he would be asleep ). And off we went, first down to the water where we stopped and glassed for about 45mins... lots of game coming in and it was a nice time to be sitting still however after the afternoon before I was not going to do anything (like unpacking and playing with a camera) that may impact on my ability to hunt

Off in the distance we could see a bull.... he was hanging back above the water with no apparent intent to come down.... and he looked the part as well...