Woohoo - the big five done!

After a much better sleep last night, the 5:30am wake up call was less offensive this morning. We were back on the jeep quicker than a leopard on a duiker!

First spot - giraffes. Second spot - rhino. Then the adorable cub from yesterday was again up a tree but with his sibling jumping on each other trying to push each other off, it was a delight to see. Our tracker then spotted something in the bush below, the ranger edged the jeep through the thick bush telling us to duck and snap off branches as we got closer. It was the mum leopard munching away on yesterday's duiker. She didn't like that we were so close and after a vicious snarl we left her in peace. Time was ticking, this was our last drive and we hadn't seen an elephant up to close yet.

A few calls over the radio and one ranger had seen large footprints and broken trees up to the north of the reserve. We headed up there.

We found an elephant then another, and another. There must have ten or so elephants in the herd. I was one happy bunny!

Elephant - check.

We were amongst them, elephants all around munching on trees oblivious to us being there. Until a male at least two foot taller came through the trees, he was huge. After a few quick shots we said our goodbyes.

The boy shouted out 'what's that?' proud that he had spotted something the tracker hadn't - we reversed to find a very big millipede! Ranger Wiehan got off his seat and picked the thing up and handed it around, I refrained but braved a little stroke.

Then more hippos, giraffes and buffaloes. We returned to the lodge fully appreciative of what we saw in the two days of being at Thornybush. We couldn't have asked for more, although we didn't see a zebra. Until next time...