Again, GREAT pics and narrative Andy. The "Ivory" on that hog look truly impressive. I hope that one day I can own at least one tusk from a wild hog of some kind. But so far, nada.

We then had a couple of days back around the main camp to kill, first order was a sleep in !!!! Well past daylight anyway ... Then a leisurely start with breakfast and lots of coffee etc. In reality this was the first time I had stopped moving since leaving for Africa so it was nice to spend most of the morning doing about nothing.

After lunch we went for a drive around the area surrounding the main camp, camera more important than the rifle now but the later along should it be required. It was great to be able to take in the surrounds and look at all manner of critters that were about. Maybe even see one of the lions here they had warned about !

There are LOTS of little forest deer/antelope around here that move with great speed and rarely stand still !! That said if I were "snack size" I probably would be a bit flighty as well ! I have a loooong list of game I saw !! But not many pictures.

One exception is a family heard of Eland..



Some exploring and found the "family sized" Beans (jack would be proud of what they grew on as well) !!!!



Now earlier I mentioned fire and the burning, in some places it is way over done but in this are they manage it well, being Australian being party to starting a bushfire is a completely foreign concept !!!!! But in Mozambique...







Going now !!





I could get 30yrs inside for doing this at home ...

And a man who loves his work !!



...the locals are almost pathological about fire !!!

And with that it was back into camp the looong way around. Arrived back late afternoon just on Beer'Oclock ... We had planned to go out the following morning and take a Duiker for meat (as a local official was pestering for it).

After beers, dinner (with a nice bottle of South African red) and some more beers we all turned in.... I slept well though I was woken many times during the night by the bloody baboons going off about something....

...... so just before light the bloody baboons woke me !!! And I can confess my head was a little foggy....

After a stretch and a walk around I stuck my head in the sink and wandered out to find coffee....!!! The camp was very quiet at this point (Sunday morning but that is not a real factor)...Jake was already about and had put out hot water and Boet and met at the coffee jar LOL !!! With mugs in hand we went and stoked the fire and sat down, I can't say we were having a lot of conversation more taking in the early morning and heavy mist that was hugging the river....the next bits are a bit blurry but I remember him asking if the Baboons had woken me and us both having a bit of a complain about them... then he said something along the lines of "F#ck LIONS"....

At this point there was a pretty heavy mist rolling along the riverbed in waves, I looked across the river bed through the mist these three.....



... were just visible... !!

We had a short scramble from the fire pit area, this was right next to my hut so I ducked in and grabbed my camera and RIFE Boet let Sarah know and I snapped off a few pics. As it all unfolded we think that the big cat in the middle (probably the mother of the other two, had been teaching them to hunt, we/the camp were what she was hunting. It also explains the commotion being made by the baboons all bloody night.

We had a couple of quick chats about the what ifs and when etc as they lingered at the tree line for a little. Basically if they hit the sand they would get the first shot across the bow At the edge of the trees there they were 109yds away.

This is that first pic with a little photoshoppery to clear it up..



Once she started moving forward things seemed as though they may get a little more interesting....



Sarah appeared with an under/over 12ga and some rounds (No8 skeet loads). As if possible we would prefer to just send them on their way. Directly below us (in a small pond on the river) were a couple of buff heads (mine and another) plus my Kudu and Warthog heads. They place them here under wire and small fish strip the flesh and crud off ASAP. If the cats when to these they were guaranteed some No8s !!!

Watching them I got a lesson or two in lion behaviour... I was also told to keep watching her while she kept her back hips "cocked" as in the pic below as from here she could be up and away towards us easily...



As I watched the cats through the lens and binos it was apparent that they were watching EVERY movement in our camp (by now all the staff were well wound up and milling near the kitchen). Bearing in mind several of them have done a runner back into camp having come across these cats in the last few weeks out on the tracks. I knew that they had told me the cats had been in and around the camp during the night before, but I did think maybe they had overplayed this a bit (for safety reasons etc). While watching them I saw all three heads slowly turn and follow something, with out taking the camera them I asked who was walking down the path... Sarah (standing just behind me and a little freaked out) said it was Boet going to his quarters. They followed every step he took !

Some teeth...







... you can tell how young they is by the little biters...

So when SHE started to come forward again to "the sand line"...



...we started think she was still considering having a go..!!

But it was like "she knew"...



...and yes, she IS staring straight at me, a very unusual feeling in itself !!!!!!!

Yep... right there next to me...



So we all sat there and watched each other for about 20 mins and then the big female moved back into the trees, the younger cats perceivably relaxed (as did we) when this happened...

I did think the Guinea Fowl were going to be in trouble (dumb dumb birds) and at one point he gave them a VERY long look !!!



The other two soon packed up and into the trees after mum, by this point that had been eyeing us off for over an hour.... !!!!

We settled a bit but left one of the camp staff watching the river (none of them wanted to move around at all as they were still a bit freaked, despite this being Africa and all that, this was the first time anyone here had seen these cats being so obvious about things, normally it was hearing them at night closer in or finding tracks (between the huts )in the mornings. We did go for a short walk behind the camp (180 degs from the river) in case they had crossed higher up and were moving in from behind.

A little later the guy watching the river called that they were out again, but further down stream...



.... it was also while they were here that we realised there were FOUR cats not the three we had seen, there was a second large female.

They then just hung around, they body language was totally different to what it had been when they were up close to us...







..... she wasted to be left alone but the young'n persisted till mum snarled and skulked away and into the middle of the river....

but the young one persisted again till told off...





The only good pic of all four out together. The young male was trying to play and it was all good till he tried to mount that big old cat and he got put well in his place.... It all happened too quick for me to catch well though.





The clouds kept rolling across moving the exposure goal posts on me, but I persisted. Not always with great results, but it was worth trying.

All told they were hanging around (visible) for close to four hours !! While not relaxing too much, once they had moved downstream and fallen into "family mode" it was less tense than the first hour or so...!!

Once they were out of sight we went for a walk down the riverbed... yes, for someone not use to land based predators hanging around this did make the hair stand up on the back of my neck a bit as you truly KNOW they are not THAT far away.

The heads under wire getting "fish stripped" ...



Some tracks (taken down were the two cats were out in the middle of the riverbed)..





Looking back up toward camp...



and across from where they were in the morning...

Love the adventure and pics thanks for posting these up.

Now THAT would get anyone's blood a pumping.

Very cool!
Having no fence between you and the little kitty cat, must be something

Thanks for sharing!

So that is pretty much it for my time in the bush in Mozambique. After the bit kittys went and sat where I could not see them and take pictures I wandered the camp a little one last time, I knew already that I was going to miss the place !!!

Hot water system again.. I am always intrigued by solutions to problems of course...



Remember that pic of the Gin Trap from earlier, here is another with some size to put it into context...



One of the other PHs got back into the main camp after a little fishing !!!

Tiger Fish... I wonder how they got that name...



Most of the camp took a siesta in the afternoon, I took the opportunity to sit and clean my rifle well and give it a good oiling, knowing it would be locked in it's case now for over a week. Sitting in the camp with no activity at all was peaceful and a little eerie at the same time. I could not help but think perhaps I was being "watched" and looking like a better and better meal opportunity . Happily there were no issues at all. The last night was spent doing my final pack and such, we had an early dinner and turned in. I spent a good couple of hour laying and recalling the last ten days !!! Loved it all !! Now once asleep I started to dream about big cats and their interest in stalking around the camp at night, its one thing to hear about it as a maybe, it is another when you have seen it. At one point I woke with a bit of a start and then realised it was of course all a dream. I took the opportunity to fight my way out from under the mosquito net and take a pee, then I settled back in for another few hours sleep (it was about 3am), just as I settled in Africa once again reminded me where I was as a lion let out a lovely loooong roar just there along the river below camp.... !!!!!

The next morning we were up and away early as I had a plane to catch. A couple of the camp staff were starting days off so they caught a lift in with us. One thing had caught my eye a couple of times and then I asked... some writing on trees/signs I had seen....



.... mine clearance markers. Lets you know that the clearance teams had gone through recently. And yes, most of the roads we had been traversing were well mined during the civil war.

A few pics I snapped along the road just because...







... those long bags contain charcoal that is the stable money making venture for the people in the bush. They ship, carry, peddle it down to the city to sell for cooking.

A logging truck...



.... lots of these traversing the roads, they have NO idea of securing a load generally (this was a good one) and the sides of the road are littered with bloody big logs that have taken flight !!! It was not unusual to pass one coming the other way with a log stick straight out the side and only just hanging on !!!

OK... look close through the dust...



.... yep, a second class ride always beats a first class walk.... maybe...

...... prison ?? Nope.... Chinese trucking company compound..!

The roads are just excitement after excitement... two lanes equal at least three or four in practice !!









Roadside market..



And Beira International Airport.... right after I had managed to once again traverse the local Police and Customs/Immigration controls with both my luggage and virginity intact...



Next stop... South Africa...

Awesome pics. And, I'm glad none of those animals had names. You'd have pi$$3d off the hippies.