Today saw us rise early to see the sunrise- the bed looks out to the valley. There was a small cloud cover exactly where the sun was, but the colours were glorious.

After waiting around so we could have breaky, then waiting again because their internet access for credit card payments wasn’t working, we finally grabbed our gear and headed down the rock face to the car.

About 40kms down the road we came to Bulawayo, which was a large city and mixed both old & new. There are currently fuel shortages in Zimbabwe- there were lines ups of about 2km long at petrol stations that actually had fuel – you could tell the ones which didn’t have any.

On the out skirts of Lusane, when I was doing my stint at driving, a huge cow with large horns decided she wanted to get to the other side – just in front of me! I found that the brakes work, but aren’t that great…

We reached the turn off to Hwange NP – there were caution signs for all different animals, Painted Dog, Elephant, Antelope etc

Just before we entered, we had a herd of elephants only a metre of the road – there were also road workers with armed escorts.

As soon as were went through all the check points, we came across a pride of lions on the side of the road, under a few trees, keeping out of the heat. Yet again no full-grown male lions, just a juvenile with just the beginnings of a mane!

We passed Shumba Pan (A pan is a large waterhole) – where a hippo was playing in the water, then he chased an elephant away from the water’s edge – was entertaining, just as we were leaving we found another 5 hippos in the water, but they weren’t as active.

We eventually reached our campsite for the next 2 nights – Kapula South Camp – a tented site, on a private concession within the park. The animals can roam freely throughout the campsite, and the two site keepers, Lucky & Paul, showed us the paw prints of a large lion and a cub, just a few steps from our tent. It is quite sandy and within a day those prints had all but disappeared, so they must have been very fresh when we saw them!!!! The site consists of 4 ensuite safari tents, 1 shared camp kitchen, a fire pit area & a raised deck- where you can view the animal coming to the waterhole- basically there are only 2 with water, within this area of the park, at the moment- it is very dry. Brendan had site 1 – which is the best for viewing the waterhole – it looks over it.

We met an Austrian couple – Hans (Pronounced Hahnis) & Petra, who leave a Land Rover Defender fully kitted out for overland travel in Livingston, Zambia and travel for a few weeks each year through Southern Africa. I could see David’s eyes light up as he interrogated Hans on the details. He likes this idea! We sat with them in the afternoon on the deck.

We were watching a group of impalas, when they all started running- there was a male lion coming, at last! This was the highlight of the afternoon. We photographed him until it was too dark.

After dinner we sat in the kitchen area until 12.30am talking, I think David was getting more ideas from Hans on how to do what they do! It was going to be a bugger to get up early (5am) in the morning.