Early morning along a main road in the Krugerpark. A white sedan stopped beside the road. When I approached that car slowly, I saw a serious lens out of the window. Looks like there is something interesting to see, I said to myself. The lady in the car was pointing to a lioness in the bush and a small cub just disappeared in the back.
That car went on and I was alone with the lioness, who stood up and went to the scrub. When she start to eat, I noticed that kill from this morning lying there, a zebra.
Another young lioness got there, and when I looked closely more lion heads popping out of the bush.
It needed Kenny to come, who pointed out the big male with a beautiful mane. He stopped his car bit further down and gave me a wink. As we changed a few words, two young lions stepped onto the road, slowly walking down to unknown destination. That’s rather peculiar , said Kenny, and start to follow them. Indeed, they’re too young to step away of the pack too far. But they’ve been looking very confident how they went down the empty road.
A hundred meters or so, then the lion youngsters left the street. Just a few meters in the bush to a pond of water. Obvious they’re thirsty and started immediately to drink. Occasionally they lift their head to see what’s going on, as more cars arrived.
From now the road gets packed with spectaculars who noticed the young lions on their going-out. Even lion teenager can’t go out for a drink without people watching them closely. So, when they had enough, or maybe felt too disturbed, they crossed the road and sneaking slowly trough the bush, back to their herd. The lioness meanwhile, was standing up and searching for their youngsters. I guess family are always the same 😉
rene bauer photography 