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Magnificant lionesses on the prowl. Inset: Mark Daffey and his family. ABOVE
The kids get creative at the EleFun Centre LEFT
courses, flying foxes, arts and craft tutoring, and library areas for quiet moments. After three weeks touring around South Africa and Victoria Falls with his mum and dad, it’s the best chance he’s had all trip to play with his own demographic. Even better is that Finn mucking around in the EleFun Centre allows us parents to rejuvenate with an Amani spa session, or by loafing around the pool.
In search of the Big Five It’s mid-October and the scrub around us is tinderbox dry. The rains should have come by now and many weakened animals are dying from starvation. The buffalo, especially, are suffering. Lions are picking them off at a rate of one per day. Finn’s eagle eyes come in handy inside the vehicle. Shortly after departing the lodge on our first morning safari, he spies a honey badger slinking through the bushes. A pair of rhino is next, hiding behind a termite’s nest. Before anyone else, he spots a hippo on foot. We stop to watch elephants stripping branches off trees and a yawning hyena escaping the sun in the shade of a thorny acacia. Wildebeest and zebra snort and waterbucks prick their ears. Duikers dart through the undergrowth and a brave sparrowhawk mobs a Wahlberg’s eagle that’s three times its size. We also track a leopard through fading light at dusk. Of the Big Five, all that’s left to see is a lion. There’s
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Ticking off the Big Five at Sabi Sabi Game Reserve is
talk over the radios of a pride of lions taking down a buffalo, and of two adult brothers seen walking in our direction. It’s the latter two we track first. We find them starfishing on their backs on the edge of a clearing. Many of the wild animals we see are visibly jittery whenever we motor close, but these two couldn’t care less, well aware of their place in Africa’s pecking order. Even when our guide parks a single vehicle length from one, neither of them bats an eyelid. It’s exciting to watch lions in such close proximity, especially when the lodge imposes a rule dictating a maximum of three vehicles around any animal. Even better is observing them when they’re up and about. Eight cubs wrestle each other and nibble from a freshly killed buffalo carcass while five lionesses lie around the periphery, allowing the cubs to climb over them. It’s the sort of event I could watch for hours, but darkness won’t permit that, and one young tummy also needs filling. As eager as Finn has been to see lions in the wild, when the choice is between watching them and eating ice cream, there’s really no contest. The writer travelled courtesy of South African Airways and Sabi Sabi Private Game Reserve.
Getting There: South African Airways has daily flights from all capital cities via Perth. Flight services operate between Johannesburg and Sabi Sabi’s private airstrip or to the nearby Skukuza Airport. flysaa.com
Where to Stay: Suite tariffs at the Bush Lodge, the most familyfriendly of Sabi Sabi’s four safari lodges and camps, start from AUD$1050 per night. Stays include open vehicle safaris accompanied by qualified rangers and trackers, all meals and transfers from Sabi Sabi’s private airstrip. sabisabi.
com/lodges/bushlodge