At this point, we had seen just about everything we wanted to see. Lots of giraffe, zebra, rhino, billions of impala, kudu, nyala, wildebeest, buffalo, African dogs, spotted hyena, lots of elephants. We also saw lions and cheetah at Phinda, and had a good look at the leopard here at Lion Sands. We even saw one crocodile. But we only had a glimpse of the hippos, and only their eyes. And we hadn’t seen any lions at Lion Sands, which we were anxious for.

We registered the lion shortfall and hippo gap with Hugh as we set out for our Friday morning drive. But as usual, we planned and the animals laughed at our plans.

Hugh said that a pack of lions had been sighted, and so we went off in search of them.

Along the way, we came across the usual set of animals that we’ve been seeing all week. We also came across a leopard – again, no one could say if it was the same one we’ve been seeing.

Our favorite leopard, maybe?, August 2025

We finally got a glimpse of the lion pack, but they were pretty far away – the single lion in the next image is much closer than the group of lions. We weren’t able to drive into this field to get closer as it was a conservation area, about the only time we weren’t allowed to go off-road. Compared to the 1X lens on your phone, the pictures below are about 46X.

Hugh and Rix decided that we would try and approach the pack from the other side, by going through the brush, but ultimately it proved impassable.

So we never got close to the lions.

Lion Sands has a number of amenities which we quite enjoyed, for the times we were actually at the camp, and not eating or sleeping. For instance, someone greets you as you return from a game drive with a damp towel to wash the dust off your hands and face. While climbing into and out of the vehicles isn’t really that difficult, they have built a loading dock that makes it much easier. There are always snacks and drinks available both before and after each drive (2). And the girls all visited the spa for various treatments.

At this point we were still looking to get closer to the lions, and the hippos were still missing. And again, as we drove, we passed the usual animals. I’m sure you’re getting a bit tired of the same old pictures.

It’s hard to tell from the pictures I’ve been posting, but many of the animals are extremely close to us (not that lion pack from this morning, of course). This young elephant was no more than 10 feet away, which was not unusual for the vegetarians.

When we were in Botswana during our last trip, Sally and I saw lots of birds. Many of them were quite beautiful, and different than any we see at home. Here, we have seen relatively few birds.

As the day wore down, Hugh again teased us with a surprise, or two. The first one appeared as we drove to a clearing near the Sabi River. For our last night, Lion Sands had arranged for a fully catered sundowner bash, complete with three servers, tablecloth-covered table, and a more extensive than usual selection of treats and drinks. And setting overlooking the river was a bonus.

But the final surprise was still to come. About 15 minutes after we got there, Rix came over and asked us all to walk down to the river to see something. Being suspicious, I brought my camera along. We had to go through some tall grasses to get to a spot close up stream a little way, prompting warnings to check for ticks later (3).

What we finally got was a great, up close viewing of several hippo frolicking in the water, to the extent hippos can be said to frolic. I counted six eyes, which translates to three hippo.

They were pretty active in the water, moving to and fro and sometimes lifting their heads out of the water. So we waited for a while; I kept the camera at the ready. And we were rewarded with this:

We all agreed that this was the ugliest mouth we’d ever seen. But the display was impressive, with water being splashed around. I’d like to say the hippo was showing off or trying to scare us, but I have no idea if they even noticed us.

So that was a satisfying end to the day, and we headed back to camp for another meal.

---

(1) A big advantage of the private game reserves is that you can drive anywhere the vehicles are capable of going, with a few conservation-oriented exceptions. We saw that yesterday and Wednesday while going to the site of the leopard kill. In the public parks like Kruger, you are strictly restricted to the paved roads.

(2) Remember that you also have a snack near the end of each drive, so the snack when you return to the camp seems a bit overkill to me. But it’s all part of the ambience and camp policy: there shall never be more than two hours between food service opportunities.

(3) Abs had found ticks on her twice already. Fortunately, the local ticks don’t seem to carry lime disease, and they hadn’t attached to her yet when she removed them.