Predators eyes are yellow……

As dusk fell we searched for the African Painted Dogs (Wild Dogs are now renamed in a campaign to improve their profile). Standing on the back of the landcruiser waving the telemetry aerial in vain, I noted the smell of burnt sugar. As we continued our dog search, so the smell continued. Then there was a lot of smoke. The vehicle radiator had overheated.

We were unable to drive any further without cooling the radiator, so we stopped, waited, poured all of the water that we had into the radiator and waited some more. Within 10 minutes it was completely dark, and we could see nothing without our head-torches. The reserve that I am currently in has 2 prominent species - elephants and lions. Neither are animals that you want to encounter at close proximity at night, and certainly not without a working vehicle to flee with.

We sat on the back of the open vehicle and shone our head-torches into the night, looking for the reflection of eyes. 5 minutes later I picked up eyes shining back at me. Yellow ones, the eyes of a predator, 10 metres from my side of the vehicle. A few minutes later the eyes slunk into the night, and I could no longer see where the animal was. Then another pair of eyes became visible on the other side of the vehicle, soon followed by the distinctive sound of a lion as it called to another lion, or at least that was what the person sitting next to me thought…..but it was my stomach rumbling, I was hungry. Then I also heard the lion, and this time it wasn't my stomach….it was the other person's stomach. The noises continued and we continued to reassure each other that it was just the sound of our hunger, until one noise that neither of us had made. We realised we did have another lion near to us, in fact about 6 metres from us, and it was making its presence known and calling to other lions.

Not surprisingly we were very relieved when we heard the sound of a vehicle engine in the distance, and the help that we had been waiting for at last arrived. Without a tow rope or chain, we had no option but to get out of the vehicle and quickly clambour into the back of the vehicle that had come to our aid. As we drove back to camp, I noticed for the first time that evening the most amazing array of stars and galaxies - for obvious reasons I hadn't been looking up at the sky until then!

Early next morning we went back to retrieve the vehicle, and found it surrounded by numerous lion tracks......