8th March - Day 8 of the trip, day 4 at the reserve

The day starts with a game drive where we start tracking one of the lions after finding one of their kill sites. Am very chuffed that I can now identify a ion kill site and from that what animal it had killed. In this case a kill the previous evening (dried blood on the ground with old spoors on the ground) and of a zebra (the other spoors and the tufts of hair found on the ground and nearby shrubbery). Seems the lions had full bellies though and were hauled up somewhere cool sleeping off the excitement of the night before because we can't find them at all.

Khumbulani and vehicles don't go together mind you - broke down again today (the clutch this time!).

After breakfast we're off to take down some more alien trees for the day. Was good hard work but once it topped 40 degrees we decided to hide under a tree for a while and Khumbulani taught us some De Belle (his first language). Such a beautiful language but can't say with confidence that I'll be able to say any of it when I get home - my mouth is not used to clicking in that way at all so found it quite difficult.

We started back on the trees a while later and I was quite pleased to bring a fair sized one down myself. I was hacking for ages mind you and various people kept offering help. Khumbulani provided incentive by finding one three times as big about 10 feet away from it and telling us he'd bring that down before I had mine down. And he did. But I was determined to bring that tree down by myself and was very pleased when I did. The pics make it look tiny mind you so sure you'll all be wondering what all the fuss was about but can assure you it was actually quite big for someone my size!

We came across a young bull elephant on the way home, just going about his own business. Could have watched him for hours. Just beautiful.

The heat was almost unbearable at one point. Don't think I've drunk so much water in all my life. So very pleased get a lovely cool shower at the end of the day.

Have discovered the only place on the reserve guaranteed to give me bberry signal (the games room)! So popped up there after dinner to check on a few things. Bad move. Having gone all the first week with no mozzie bites and only getting two in PE I was a very wholesome last supper for one mozzie there - 6 bites in all, which immediately flared up (those regular readers will know I have a bad reaction to mozzies). And I say last supper because the minute I saw him he was dead. I can honestly say I love all wildlife with only this one exception. They are spawn of the devil!

Met Khumbulani on the way back to our dorms - gutted to hear that the guests he took on a game drive immediately after he'd dropped us off had seen, in one drive, the lions just a few feet away from that kill sight, the elephants and the giraffe. Very lucky.

The heat was making us all very sleepy though so early to bed.

Love
Jox