Safari - Day three (2nd instalment) ...

... and probably the highlight of our time at Beho Beho but first! We have heating back but no hot water - doh! Nice kind British Gas man (fixed price repair) came yesterday and gave us a 2nd opinion. Boiler not quite dead and is repairable ... just not an easy repair so, our suspicion that the last guy just didn't want to do it was probably a fair assessment! Part is ordered and nice British Gas man will be back on Monday to fit part and we should have hot water back. It will give us time to sort something out re a new boiler - *lol*

Back to Beho Beho (oh, I wish!). Cold, wet, 4-wheel drive experience, slipping and sliding all over place. Usual giraffe, impala, wildebeest, ellie we could nearly touch, rare wild dogs and side-striped jackal and the 'lucky' ant army. We had no idea quite how lucky that ant army would turn out to be. Salum had a plan but we had no idea what it was however, we were never gonna find out 'cos all of a sudden vehicle swerved, Salum's fist started punching the air and he starts uttering about how lucky we were .... again! (Very enthusiastic is Salum - he loves his work and it comes across!) Man with eyes in back of head - and everywhere else - had seen something we'd missed until we were on top of it ....

Tracks .... lions!

We found them and Salum was suspicious of actions so we drove past, prepared breakfast and drove back and settled to watch ...

We watched for some while as Salum wanted to time them. Dependant upon time between 'actions' - as Salum called them - he could tell how early in the mating process they were. We'd passed this area the day before so, unless they had hidden themselves, he suspected that they were on the first day and sure enough, 15 minutes later it started all over again. 15 minutes is the time between on the first day and the time increases every day after, until the 7th day. I won't go into details but suffice to say they're very hungry and thin by the end of it all as it's a 24/7 process!

The Sundowner drive in the afternoon (and our last drive of our stay) saw Matt and Anie join us along with Tam .. the manageress of Beho Beho. Salum asked what we'd like to find for the afternoon, my suggestion being a leopard (the only other animal that was difficult to find and one we'd not seen) but as Matt, Anie and Tam hadn't seen the lions and we knew that they'd be in the same area we drove to find them. There's a time limit in the Selous Game Reserve. All game vehicles have to be back in camp by 7pm and there is a very hefty fine if they're not back - and it's checked! The lions were some way from camp so there was no time to take a 'steady' drive to them if we were to spend time watching them and make it back by 7pm. Salum became an F1 driver and we held on for grim death *LOL*

We found them easily as they hadn't moved from the place they were in earlier so we drove past, prepared our Sundowners...

... then drove back to watch ....

(This time I remembered I had video on my camera!)

An amazing end to our safari experience!

(I've had to upload the video to YouTube to get it on here and I'm not sure it's uploaded with the clarity of the original but reckon you get the idea - lol!!)

Thanks for dropping by .....