Fortunately we werent eaten by lions during the night so we were woken up around 5.30/6. I'd heard a few rustles in the bushes which was rather unnerving but managed to get some sleep. Pretty scary though!

Today I was spending the day on a rhino drive rather than looking for lions
Because of the threat of poaching the leo team keep close tabs on the rhions - and because poachers may read this I can't say too much about the day
I can say that I was lucky enough to get a visual of the incredible rare black rhinos despite them hiding in bushes camouflaged as a rhinosorock!

We also saw zebra, a baby giraffe and a family of warhogs (they're so cute when they run in a little line) and there was some great views of the reserve from the top of a look out shelter. the morning passed quite quickly & it was soon time to find a cool spot by a muddy waterhole for lunch. the afternoon however was long. we didn't see so much as an impala! And in the 37oC heat with little shade, the only breeze was a hot one & after little sleep today's actually felt like work - and hard work at that! At one point we had to go searching for water as we'd drank what we'd bought & were dehydrated! Luckily one of the landowners lets us use his outdoor tap - so there we were with the hosepipe cooling ourselves down! The water tasted a little funny too but by this point we didn't care!

As well as looking after the animals we also look after the reserve & today that inc removing fallen trees from the roads with a handsaw! There is evidence there are elephants all over the reserve - lots of elephant poo and lots of fallen trees where the male elephants been proving their strength to the females by pushing them over - yet despite spending days driving around the bush I'm yet to see one!!

So we were now on a mission to find some elephants! We manged to trace a signal down by the river so we parked up. We could hear some rustling & heavy elephant type breathing so after checking there was nothing that could eat us close by our guide allowed us to walk off the truck to the river edge and there across the river partially hidden by trees was a whole herd of elephants! An hoping to get a better view of them during my final week - cant believe how fast my time here is going!

We arrived back at base hot, dusty & exhausted! After a cold shower & some potjie (SA stew) I was in bed & asleep by 8pm (and despite it still being 34oC in the bedroom)