Well, hello there. I hope that you are splendidly well and have had a lovely weekend. I am going to be very quick this week because I am handing you over to Simon Cousins who was recently here with his family and for such a special occasion. He brought his ancient lucky cap and boy did it pay off. So, without any further ado Simon over to you:
“It was great to be back in the Luangwa Valley with my mum and sister, Sandra, and her family. Sandra hadn’t been back to the Valley for over 17 years, and her kids had never been before, so it was all very exciting.
Arriving at Luangwa Safari House is a breath-taking experience, especially for first time visitors, and we were warmly welcomed by Tizi and the team.
With all of my recent trips and fantastic sightings the pressure was on to see it all – and the Luangwa produced some of its finest!
Keen to get out into the bush we left early for our afternoon game drive. Shortly after crossing the river, to get to our vehicle, we came across a lovely female leopard and her sub-adult male cub, in the beautiful evening light. We followed them for a short distance and found that they had stashed an impala kill under a thicket nearby. The young male fed greedily whilst mum kept an eye out for any threats.
What a start to the trip.
We left the leopards and moved on towards Lupunga Spur for sundowners… only to find a pack of wild dogs there – limbering up for an evening hunt. We quicky realized that sundowners were going to be delayed.!! The pack of dogs took off across the plain, scattering impala everywhere and eventually took down one male impala not far from us.
A very elated family eventually got to enjoy ‘moon uppers’ drinks on the banks of the river!
An amazing start to the trip, indeed, but I did have a bit of a concern as to how I was going to keep this level of sightings up over the coming 4 days………!! I kept trying to reiterate to the family that this was not normal and that they must not expect this sort of action every day!
But Luangwa is not any ordinary safari destination and the gift that keeps on giving really did keep on giving.
The sightings were all action packed.
The second afternoon was quite incredible. We found a lovely female leopard by the side of the road, in the afternoon sunlight, staring at an impala ram, who was feeding out in the open.
We were all stunned when she got into a crouch, when she went into a ‘leopard crawl’ across 30-40 metres of oven ground and took cover behind a log on the ground! A brazen move in daylight. We sat there with bated breath as the impala came closer and closer to her. Any moment now, we thought….
But she waited and waited for the impala to get even closer… and this probably ended up saving the impala from being taken by the leopard. There were now two dead stumps, sticking up off the log, that prevented the leopard from leaping on top of the oblivious antelope. You can imagine the fright the impala got when it eventually saw the leopard!
When it came to seeing Hyena’s, it wasn’t just seeing a couple of hyenas wandering off to bed the one early morning but a hyena calling not far from the vehicle. A wonderful and slightly haunting sound when experienced close up. To add to this a second hyena came wandering out of the thickets and replied to the call, not far away! They then met up, greeted each other. And lay down together for a short while. Then one hyena then got up and began to head off around a bend in the road. As she got to the bend, she suddenly became very alert and her hair stood up on the back of her neck… she started to growl and an impala came bounding down the road! She tried to take the impala but was too slow, as the impala was being pursued by a pack of wild dogs!
The dogs vanished into the bush, after the impala, so we drove round the bend to see if there were any more dogs coming down the road, when my youngest daughter whispered excitedly ‘leopard’!
There, in a tree by the side of the road, was a leopard, no doubt up the tree seeking refuge from the dogs!
On our final morning, we decided to go for a short drive, before packing up and leaving. We crossed the river early in the morning, only to find the plain by the Nkwali harbour eerily quiet. None of the usual impala and puku residents were there. My oldest daughter then pointed out the mass of impala tracks, clearly running in one direction, in the road. There is really only one animal that will cause this sort of situation – dogs. Moments later the alpha female appeared from a thicket and trotted towards our vehicle. She stopped close by and began to call. The rest of the pack soon appeared and greeted her excitedly. Soon after this they spotted some impala in the distance and took off after them but failed to kill and seemed to settle down off in the bush quite away from us. I told everyone that these dogs are hungry and patience was needed from us, as they will hunt again. About 40 minutes later they came racing out the bushes in hot pursuit of a herd of impala and took down a female not far from us.
What an amazing send off for the family.”
Wow, Simon – how amazing! I am totally lost for words… thanks for sharing with us.
On that note, all I can really say is have a fantastic week ahead with plenty of smiles and laughter and don’t forget to look after one-another.
