Amazing Journeys: Ulusaba Game Drive

Game Drive at Ulusaba offered us new experiences everyday. I believe this was also true even for the rangers and trackers. The amazing BIG CAT show was one that made us unforgettable.

Over the walkie talkie, Lawrence was told that there was a baby leopard around. After quite a difficult journey, ran on medium size trees and rugged land, we were all completely impressed by the engine of Land Rover, a little leopard was found.

It was such a close encounter, the leopard lay only somewhat like 5-6 feet apart from us. This was a completely unique experience to us. With spots all over the body, the leopard was such a beautiful creature. If you ever had a cat at home, you can image what we’ve seen in this morning’s leopard show.

This beautiful creature performed an unforgettable BIG CAT Show for us.

Unfortunately my mini camera had no video function!

It was actually a BIG CAT show. Cat walk, cleaning, scratching, typical lovely cat motions were all demonstrated. With his tongue cleaning his paws, then his face and his head; cleaning the tail, cleaning the hands, cleaning the rear legs – it was such a great leopard show. That was exactly what your cat does at home, but now by a big cat in the wild. It was just amazing! We were all extremely happy when saying goodbye to the lovely baby leopard.

Animal Emotions
Animals do have emotions. While Peter reported them being charged by a rhino, we were charged by an angry elephant in the same morning. Nobody knew what has pissed him off. Anyway, the elephant was coming towards us. Janet our tracker, with her natural instinct quickly drove away and the elephant was still after us for a certain distance. May yelled to wait while taking photo with Sean using the elephant as the backdrop, without knowing that her life being threatened. Janet said ‘you want a photo, but we want our lives’.

About elephants, I didn’t know that they were quite a destroyer in the jungle, until I saw the facts. They like pulling down trees and eat their leaves, bark and even the trunks. All the dead dry tree bodies on the floor were left over from their meals.

Bloody Kill
This was what we most wanted to see and most afraid of seeing. One morning, we were closed to a fresh kill, perhaps just two hours late. A cheetah lay proudly beyond his prey, probably a young impala. The cheetah seemed to be so full that he was unable or didn’t care to move.

See the cheetah and his prey on the tree?

Separately we saw a family of two lioness and three cubs eating the left over of their prey from yesterday. Pulling the internal organs out was really bloody and cruel. Next a leopard on the tree was enjoying his prey, a bit more fresh than the lions’. It demonstrated the natural rule of order. The dominator ate first, not until he finished, his subordinate didn’t had a chance. Once he moved away, the next quickly continued. And of course there was a hyena waiting apart to clear the left over.