After a fantastic first two drives, the guests and I were excited to find out what was happening with the nyala kill and see if the leopard had returned to his meal. There was no rush to get that side as the Bush Lodge vehicles would be the first to get there and we would get a good idea of what was going on from them before we needed to rush anywhere.

We were quickly greeted by a herd of zebra, wildebeest and two and a half rhino that were grazing on the open area just North of the lodge and spent a good hour watching the interaction between all the large herbivores.

From there we started to track a leopard that had very recently been through the area. We found the tracks on top of a troop of baboon’s tracks and then found the baboons. Myself and my tracker, Solly, jumped off the vehicle to go down to the river and see if we can pick up the tracks down there but this female just kept one step ahead. We then heard elephants trumpeting near by and were sure that the leopard had been chased off. After an hour of checking she had miraculously disappeared and was probably hiding in the river out of the way of the hundreds of elephants that have been calling Sabi Sabi, home, for the last few days.

After sundowners we went back towards the nyala kill and on the way Fred heard more elephants trumpeting close to the kill and we sped in to see what the commotion was all about. When we found the herd they were highly stressed all huddled around the babies making sure they were safe. We switched off the car hoping that something would give away the position of the leopard we were so desperate to see. Right on cue impala started alarm calling and we headed in their general direction and saw a flash of black cross the road. At first I thought we had found a black leopard but on closer inspection he was covered from head to toe in mud. He had clearly been chased into the dam by the elephants and had a cut on his backside from where one of the elephants had caught him. Fortunately the injury was not to bad and he showed no sign of any discomfort.

After following him for a while he snuck off into some thick bush and we lost him. So we decided to see if there were any hyenas feasting on the now abandoned nyala carcass. When we arrived there were 2 hyenas feeding and enjoyed watching them as they crunched their way through flesh and bone until so full that they fell asleep. That was when we decided to call it quits and go get some food for ourselves.