TGIF

After all the excitement of the last couple of days, I was quite happy to have a quieter time on Friday.

We had a somewhat leisurely start, leaving the house by around 7.30am. The first task was to find the lions. They have radio collars on and you have to wave a TV aerial-type device around to pick up the signal. We had found their approximate location in the middle of a thicket area, but didn't want to take the vehicle right in because it would have given us limited options to get away quickly if we needed to. The game ranger told me of a time when he chanced upon the male lion taking his pleasure with the female and was not too happy to be disturbed, so chased the land rover up the track. So on this occasion, we "found" the lions, but did not find them so to speak.

Work on the reserve is not all about exciting game capture. There are a number of more mundane tasks that need to be done as part of the overall reserve management, but are vital to the welfare of the animals. One of these tasks is checking the perimeter fence each week for any damage. We first turned off the electrification, then drove slowly round the edge of the northern section of the reserve looking for any problems. A couple of fixes later, the job was done. It took a good two and a half hours from start to finish and that was just checking a relatively small part of the reserve.

We then spotted that the land rover had a flat tyre - a common occurrence given the rough terrain that you drive through. The game ranger, keen to expose me to all aspects of work on the reserve, got me to jack up the land rover and change the tyre. The last few pulls on the jack required all my body weight to move it. Those sessions in the gym before I came out seem to have paid off.

I feel a career in the RAC coming on..

Just before lunch, we did a count of the wildebeest and blesbok - a sort of stock-take for the lions' future meals. The fact that they keep moving around does not make the task easy, particularly when you're peering through a pair of binoculars.

Later that day, we spent a tranquil half hour near one of the watering holes, where even the buffalo seemed to know that Friday afternoons are about kicking back and winding down for the weekend.