Our first encounters

With Site 36 now registered to us, we have full access to the 37 000 hectare reserve. We use the research camp at Main Gate as our base, from which we do full day trips into the reserve. While we acknowledge that this is quite hard core, we cannot contain ourselves and are happy to drag any willing bodies along on the excursions.

​Map in hand, and a GPS as backup, we have spent the last few weekends covering different parts of the reserve. The place is even more awesome than we could have imagined. Getting lost, and quarrelling about the right direction and road to follow, is just par for the course. We are dumbfounded when we repeatedly end up at the same spot, and realise that we were both wrong.

The reward however is sweet. Every creature we find is an adventure, but our excitement knew no bounds when we found our first lion pride today. Three females meeting up on the road, rubbing up against one another, and tacitly demonstrating how the only gregarious cats in Africa roll. We were a bit torn between keeping them as our secret or calling them in on the radio. Reminded of the wonderful sightings we have experienced, due to the generosity of other guides, we called in the sighting.