“You wanna come for a walk?” specialist ranger, Grant, calls through the window. “Ummm…” It’s only 5:30am and we are still asleep. “We’re walking lion”. No decision to make, we’re up and getting dressed and soon on the Cruiser heading north, with Dale, Grant, Jacque and Sam “Isigqoko”. Rangers are looking for the lioness and three cubs up near Bischoffs.
As we break out onto the marsh Sam spots a cheetah. We drive over to Hennie’s Dam and there they are. The two brothers. They look restless. The lioness and three have been located, the radio tells us. Damn! We leave the cheetah and head south to look for the two big lionesses.
Driving along Mkuze boundary towards Bayete. Sam is in the tracker seat. From the nearby community of Nibela, he began working on Phinda 14 years ago. As a tracker. Tracks are difficult to spot from a moving vehicle, but not much gets past Sam.
“Mana!” The vehicle stops. Lion tracks. Fresh. From last night. We pile off the Cruiser, Grant bringing the rifle with him. The guys spread out, looking for tracks. The sand is hard and the tracking tough. Dale points with his walking stick to where the lion trod on a bit of grass. You can see the grass is bent and there is a bit of sand on the blade. “It’s all about attention to minute detail” he says. Indeed.
Our pace is slow. Fifteen minutes and we can still see the vehicle only a hundred or so metres away. “You must keep looking up too,” Dale says. “You never know what’s ahead of you.”.
Sam gives pointers here and there but Jacque and Grant are leading the walk. We pass a small pan on our left, making some progress. The group is spread out. The bush is quite open, with patches of dense thicket in areas.
“There they are!” In a loud whisper. Grant has spotted them. “Come this side, let’s stick in a group”. We move quickly and quietly over to him. The thicket is not more than 20m in front of us. Straining through the trees you can just make out a tan-coloured shape. Her shoulder. Dale and Jacques pass their binos on to us. Everyone whispers. No sudden movements. We stand watching for two or three minutes. Grant is not happy being so close and we slowly back off. Still facing them. For anything that slightly resembles an animal trying to escape might trigger a charge. At 60m away we stop, for a more relaxed look. Through the gap on the trees I can see her amber eyes glaring straight at us. What an awe-inspiring sight and an exhilarating experience.
All the rangers cannot believe that the lionesses didn’t charge. From that distance? Amazing. Usually lions give a warning growl from a quite a bit further away. At 20m they will always charge. But not today. Sam thinks that us moving so slowly kept them very relaxed. Either way, we are happy. Overjoyed in fact. Seeing lion on foot, another experience we shall never forget!
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