Day 2 – Looking for Lions

Kings Pool capers Day 2  “Looking for Lions”

Sophie’s and Kane’s birthdays.

Breakfast was dominated by the recounting of the scorpion incident. Many of the ladies were seen to shudder slightly!

A wonderful day focused on the viewing of the lions at Kings Pool.

The pride is led by a magnificent male lion called Romeo. He is very handsome with a full, dark mane. He is approx 10 years old, the veteran of many successful fights to defend his riverside territory. At present, he is battling to protect it from incursions by two coalitions of younger male lions.

For Romeo, there is no choice, he has to fight and win or be killed and his family destroyed. He has two young cubs in the pride and, should he lose, then their lives would be forfeit.

Unhappily, there is a certain inevitability that one day he will lose.

The day culminated with an exciting night drive to try and see Romeo’s pride in the dark..

Initially, we couldn’t find them and so Kane imitated an impala distress call. We sat in the dark and waited, trying to adjust our eyes to the gloom. Within 5 minutes, Romeo was beside our Land Rover. His approach had been so quiet that none of us knew he was there. Our pulses quickened when we saw him and he became the focus of our rapt attention. So much so that we had also failed to notice the arrival of the rest of the pride!

We were surrounded. The lions lay on the ground around our vehicle and looked at us. Eventually, they decided that we were of no real interest and continied with their hunt. We marvelled at their feline stealth and felt very insignificant.