We are enjoying the relaxed life at King's Camp. Michele and Don, our ROAR 1 Close Elephant Encounter survivors, have enjoyed or endured (choose your verb) two more close run-ins with the ellies. Our arrival was graced with a large elephant herd taking up the camp's watering hole space. A few brave impala were trying to get a drink, but the ellies were having none of it.

We went on to find the three Timbavati Brother lions, looking just like the Sphinx in Egypt. They got up and gave one mad dash for a warthog. Score was Warthog 1, Timbavati Brothers 0. Kudu are plentiful here - and their related species, the uniku (single horned male formerly considered a kudu) has also been sighted. As we returned in the early evening, we met our night watch, Johannes.

Johannes has this group figured out. He was waiting with glasses of sherry and quickly assigned us our camp names "Number Six .. Come to Me! Black is alcohol .. mango juice is orange. Allll rrrrright". We are now known as Numbers 1, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 15. For those in double rooms, we are delineating by ranking and non-ranking members. We are enjoying asking him how he slept each morning. He is continually clarifying he sleeps during the DAY.

The next morning we learned "Rockfig" equals "superb leopard sighting". We found Rockfig Female and Rockfig Female Cub in an open clearing. The impala jerky (remnants of a two day old kill) was swinging in the breeze from a high tree branch. Mom was keeping an eye on daughter. Daughter decided to practice her stalking skills on Mom, complete with a POUNCE. Mom smacked Daughter off her back. Then Daughter & Mom headed over to the tree. Daughter lept to her task, scaling the tree and figuring out the 57 different positions for chewing impala jerky. Mom kept watch and relaxed under the tree. What a phenomenal sighting.

After a lazy breakfast, snooze and lunch, we headed out with our new ranger, Remember. We tracked rhinos to the ends of the terrain. The rhinos would not come out for a clear photo shot, but we had quite a fine time tracking them. We circled around to the cape buffalo batchelor herd and had our sundowners. Not only did the sun go down, but so did the tire on our jeep. Ever tried to anchor a jack in sand? Our staff worked hard & finally got the tire replaced. We were heading back as the light faded. Our tracker spoke rapidly as we saw the outline of a small group ahead in the distance. The tracks appeared to be ... wild dog .. but given the fading light and replacement tire, the decision was taken to head into camp.

This morning, we saw the king lion. He's 14 years young and practiced his roaring for our collective benefit. We had a lovely breakfast - african spiced hot chocolate with a side of creamed spinach.

Cindy is having her massage, and the animals are cooperatively parading in front of the massage tent. Same Big 5, over and over again. Buffalo .. go! Rhinos .. take your places ..

Cheers and pleasure, Number 7 Ranking Member