A 5.45am wake up call, with tea, preceded our 0630 game drive. The light this morning was amazing and as dawn broke a golden colour bathed the landscape and made our very early sighting of a cheetah mum and cubs all the more special. I am not sure how Jonathan spotted them as they were so well camouflaged against the golden background. We later learnt that he used the other animals to tell him what's about - as we watched him work we thought he was the best guide we have had for being in tune with his surroundings. Today's photo is of the cheetah mum being passed by a giraffe on the move.
After enjoying the day dawn and the cheetahs we moved on to a waterhole and watched nervous giraffes drinking - it's a long way down.
Breakfast called but not back at camp as we initially thought - I spied red table cloths in the bush which revealed a bush breakfast and a loo with a view over the plains!
Replete our next episode was watching a lioness stalking zebra - but to no avail as they spotted her. We returned to camp late morning after watching the fascinating life in the marsh area.
I went for my daily swim before lunch and had a siesta, where before nodding off I saw a slender tailed mongoose dash across the grass by our tent.
Our first sighting of the afternoon drive was a single female cheetah who we followed for a while. I saw a bat eared fox running - the first Jonathan has seen in 12 months - so we thought there was now a den close by.
The end of the day saw us reunited with the lion pride - dad was looking after the seven cubs of varying ages, the female we saw this morning was still off hunting and the other male and female were away making more cubs!
The last sighting en route back to camp was of the lioness drinking water, with Kilimanjaro emerging in background, clearly after a fruitless days hunting - she occasionally grunted trying to locate the pride......but we knew they were along way away.
With Jonathan's foot to the floor we zoomed back to camp as it was well past the 6.30pm deadline - we arrived in the dark just after 7.00pm - but with great viewings under our belt!