Lion around

The radio collars that the lions wear at Amakhala have been wearing out quicker than expected and so the lions need to be darted fairly frequently to replace them. Amakhala is trying to source some alternative collars which will last longer, but they're quite expensive. A teacher in a British school came up with an interesting proposition - they would raise the money if Amakhala would provide regular reports on the lions' behaviour to help educate the children and get them interested.

This is a great idea in theory. In practice, however, it's more difficult because the lions don't really do an awful lot. They spend 18 hours out of every 24 asleep and when they are active, it's dark and you can't really see what they're doing.

The game ranger has given me the task of writing up the short report on this occasion, largely because he has run out of inspiration for what to write himself, I suspect. So we are sat there at 9.30am on Monday morning watching them do their usual thing - snoozing.

The game ranger makes some helpful suggestions for what I might include in the report - what the weather is like; how many flies they are; how often the lion farts; how often he licks his balls. He then went on to explain that there is an expression in Afrikaans - "you're tickling the lion's balls", which is a more colourful way of saying, "you're asking for trouble". I guess you would be.

We decided to return later in the day for a night drive when hopefully they will be more active. In the meantime, we pitch into the activity I've been eager to get on with: road maintenance. We had a very heavy thunderstorm on Friday afternoon and the sandy soil on the reserve washes away very easily, leaving large pot holes in the tracks. So it was out with the pickaxe and spade again.

We also cleared away all the wire fencing that Kapella had fallen into when we darted him. The fencing dates back to when the land was a farm and years later, there are still bits to clear away.

We returned to the lions at 6pm. Dusk is an ideal time to see them up and about and preparing to hunt. They truly are majestic beasts and look in prime health. The pair of them would roar periodically - up to 30 roars in one go at times. They stalk through the bush and you pity whatever animal comes into their sight. At one point, the female passes by only five metres to the left of our vehicle. The male was heading straight for us, but thankfully decided to lie down before reaching us. We reversed out slowly to avoid looking provocative.

The sun goes down and they carry on stalking menacingly in the dark. Alas we can no longer see them and head back at 9pm.