Imagine this scene…

We were following two brother Cheetah as they crossed the Ntiakitiak river, it was getting dark and the brothers were clearly agitated so we let them be and drove on a few hundred meters.

Then on our right we saw a mother Leopard (Acacia) with her five month old cub in the process of stalking a Dik Dik.Suddenly the cub got very low and bolted off through the long grass in the direction of the forest. His mother sat up and watched something else.

We went ahead and found, not more than 40 meters away, a young male and female Lion stalking the Leopards. The mother Leopard held her ground, bravely giving her cub time to slip away. She started growling at the Lions, holding their attention, and they began moving forward to attack.

Acacia bolted for the trees with the Lions in hot pursuit. She managed to get up the first tree she came to and climbed high up the branches until she was almost falling out. The Lions slipped away underneath her and silently waited. After about 10 minutes we held our breath as the Leopardess came down and ran for her life as the Lions charged again. She got away but the sounds of the growling pursuit came drifting to us eerily out of the forest.

What a drive and our hearts were pounding with relief that these two Leopards escaped certain death.

Other highlights of the evening included a ‘journey’ of 20 Giraffe through the sunset, 3 Bat-eared Foxes, Hyenas, Topis, Elephant, Hippo, Eland, Buffalo and Mongooses not to mention the thousands of Zebra and other grazers.