Day 4 - Chasing Lions

Managed to be up in time this morning and we had a long drive to the other side of the reserve. Unfortunately Brendon's shortcut was blocked by a tree and he had the devils own job of trying to reverse back down a hill and over a stream. Several attempts and he was cheered on as we clawed our way out! So worth it tho' because just as we arrived where there had been a sighting we were rewarded with a male lion approaching and walking within a few feet of us! He gave a few low rumbles (apparently calling for the other male) and then proceeded to continue his walk. We were all gobsmacked that we had been so close to such a magnificent animal and Brendon drove the truck behind him until he found the other male and we could catch a glimpse of the two of them toghether. There were  two lionesses also around but apparently they were avoiding the males so we could not see much of them in the bush. Continuing our drive we were also lucky to come across a black rhino and again Brendon managed to get us within 6 feet of him, an amazing sight!
After all that excitement we spent the rest of the morning in the sun lazing around the pool at the lodge.
The afternoon drive was planned for us to go in search of the new born elephant that we had seen with the herd on our first day but first we had a brilliant time watching a group of  giraffe, they are so graceful and clearly my favourite!
Brendon located the herd of elephants and eventually we spotted the baby - he was much more stable on his legs and also attempting to suckle from his mum, so cute but also so small and all the other females are very protective.
We also managed a short night time drive as Brendon was determined to find hippo and had an enormous infra red beam which he shone over everything and we did actually find a hippo out of the water but he wasn't keen on posing and dissappeared pretty quickly. Probably just as well because he really only showed up as a large pink blancmange shape in the bushes, we will try again in the morning!