Last day at Hwange Camp

Yaaaa we get to sleep in!! A whole 45 minutes worth hehe. We will take it, missed the sun rise but we are facing the wrong way anyway.

Good morning to you too chap!

Mmmmm grass...

Setting out at 6am we found our daily dose of Elephants (gotta take it all in, this might happen every day in Zim, but I sure do love it)

Julian pulled over not too long after we started and said that he found some lion tracks. Cool! So we (and by we, I mean Julian haha) tracked them for a while, but we didn't manage to find a Pride. . .

Come here kitty kitty -big- kitty!
(Jason's hand)

Following the tracks

Again, I am not much for a bird watcher. . . but gotta see all the species in their raw beauty! So we would sit and wait for them to burst into flight to get a stellar shot <3

Came to the Shumba camp -which is not far from ours- and we stumbled across some hunters.

This is where everyone needs to BOO!

I am not boo-ing against hunters, but it is a National Park people, and for some government reason you are still able to hunt in the national park. (Another way to get the country some money)

Another round of BOOO's please. . .

Back to our non killing safari. . . 

Jackel - I wanna take this guy home!

We set out on the main road, and after an uneventful 1/2 hour . . . BAM! 

Coming around the corner there was a lioness just chillin on the side of the road. Haha, hello!

As we sat there, she ended up causing a 5 car traffic jam with all the attention she was getting from all us tourists! 

We followed her for a good 20 minutes down the road after she went walking, but at 8am it had gotten pretty warm and she stopped to lay down by some big rocks. These rocks, I would like to note, are the ones that we walked by yesterday!!! 

Eeeeep just imagine coming around the corner and seeing her! I would have peed my pants lol 

One big mama

Talk about adrenaline rush every time she looks at you... Why what big teeth you have

We made our way to this huge watering hole (on the way we saw a Serval cat! Sorry, I was too slow on getting a picture, but imagine a house cat with Leopard print) 

At the watering hole, there were tonnes of crocs and hippos. 

And BY the way, next time you are in Africa, take note of the way the Hippo's sound... it is like a 4-stroke motorbike hahaha.

While having some coffee, these black Starling birds came to crash out party and quite confidently bounced up to us and pretty much begged for come cookie crumbs. Gavin spilt his tea all over my foot when the bird jumped down beside him LOL (sorry Gav, it was funny)

And for your viewing pleasure, here are some of the other wicked things on the rest of our Game Drive 

If you look at the back of these guy, it isn't a past wound, but a hinge.
When he "turtles" it will allow him to scrunch up tighter in his shell lol

Owlette in the daylight! Stunning!

"Are you talking to me!?"

There was a Finland group of 3 guys that showed up when we got back to camp and they were VERY entertaining! Hoping to expect them at our wedding (hehehehe). No joke.

We all went for a hike around camp and it ended up being a wicked lightening show around us. 

At one point, we had to be quiet and sneak away from one feisty bull elephant. . .  then found some Cheetah poop. But no Cheetah. 
Poop.

Learned about termine colonies! VERY cool. Wiki Termites, it will blow your mind, they aren't always about eating wood :P

That is a very large Termite Mound, and they are everywhere.

Came back for a lightening show and had some good drinks, dinner and lots of laughs!

And just before bed, 2 Lion Prides started calling each other. . . and they were close.

Sooooo as we sat there, we asked Julian "can we go find them?" 

"Just wait a little bit to see if they get closer" he said.

So we waited, and "ooooooh OOOOOH" (my lame internet attempt at a Lion call) they were closer! Hehehe so we set out (at 11pm) looking for them. 

We drove around for a while, and then SAT IN THE DARK while we listened and tried to hone in to where they were.

It was a bummer we didn't find them, but it was still pretty cool to go out that late looking for lions!

We all fell asleep to the two Prides calling eachother. . .  You don't get that kinda stuff in Mexico ;)

105 second exposure...
and I was THRILLED when I released the shutter to find the elephants had wandered into the frame