Today it was my turn to use the telemetry and navigate us to the lions. Anyone who knows me knows navigation is not my best skill and after failing to see lions on last nights drive the pressure was on......

However I needn't have worried - I waved the antenna, twiddled k*** & listened to the beeps and after only an hour of searching we came across not one, not two, not three but four lions!!! There was grandma lion (Selati), great aunt lion (mica), daddy lion (Mbhurri) & aunt lion (Matumi)!!!! All but Selati were sat out in the open too so got some great pictures & got to enjoy watching them for around an hour - and also got to see some lion loving too!!

Was a brief scary moment when the data book with the time & locations of all our sightings (all sightings & signals of all 'predators' in the park are captured) fell out the back of the truck - you don't want to be walking around with 4 lions in the vicinity but managed to manoeuvre the truck to get it back without the lions noticing - phew!

Back on base I helped one of the other volunteers to enter the data into a excel spreadsheet then discussed British v American political systems with the American volunteer who works in the whitehouse until was time to head out again in search of leopards!!!

Leopards are v shy & so are often harder to find compared to lions (they are quicker & will run away from noises such as trucks of volunteers -and they can also jump the fences) so after an our of driving around without getting a signal from the ground we set out to climb a coppie to get a better signal. Coppies are steep rocky hills & this one was 150m high & covered in prickly bushes & poisonous cacti so was a bit of a challenge!! The views from the top were great but alas no leopard signal :(

If we thought climbing up was a challenge, so was climbing down. The guide suggested an easier route down so off we set, and half way we heard screams of panic as someone stepped on a bees nest - and the bees were not happy so back up the coppie we ran!!

So that meant to we has to go back down the way we came, and 2 twisted ankles, 2 cut hands & a bruised back (& 2 bee stings) later we were back on the ground.......I don't think we'll be climbing anymore coppies & we never did find the leopard!!!! Off to Kruger park tomorrow - maybe will have more luck there???

Dinner was served round the camp fire. after having things like spag bol & chilli todays was a South African dish called potjle - an impala & vegetable stew, but being veggie & having spent time admiring the impala's I stuck to the veggie impala free version!

It was then bedtime for a few hours as needed to be up at 4.20 to go to Kruger park, but before that I was on night watch midnight til 2am

Night watch consisted of radioing the anti-poaching teams every 10 mins to make sure they were awake and inbetween times shingling the torch around to look for animals & check who might be looking at us!!! Last night there was a hyena pottering around the waterhole for 20mins or so. The guide thinks they must have a den near by as they've been spotted a few times