Well, this is the end of week one for Doug and me. It has been absolutely incredible. We love Leopard Hills. The rangers are just the best, the food too good and the sightings have been different from what we have experienced on Roars I and II and ever so good.

Our alarm clock the past two mornings has been the roar of lions right near or on the Leopard Hills property. There have been daily lion sightings and you can watch them for hours. They all seem quite well fed and content to loll about.

There have been two highlights of the trip here so far...the wild dogs and the leopards. I was a bit worried about the leopard sightings since there is a new alpha male in town and he killed both the alpha male and his offspring quite recently. However, the mother of the offspring has decided to move on with the new alpha male and follows him everywhere, flirting up a storm. The male seems to be having none of it and there have been some nasty words "roars" exchanged. There is also a new male leopard around who is a hunk. He is checking out the territory. He appears quite young and has been stalking about as well. We have had the luxury of watching them for extended periods of time and we all have fantastic photos.

Our group had a terrific wild dog sighting on day 1 following them around for about an hour watching them play and hunt. Yesterday, we visited the bitch who is guarding the den filled with her yet to be seen offspring. There was another female dog, beta bitch, who played around with alpha bitch's alpha male and found herself pregnant. Well, this is evidently a no-no in the wild dog world and, when alpha bitch delivered her own bitches, she killed the other litter of pups. I feel like I am living in the Peyton Place of the animal kingdom.

There have been lovely giraffe and elephant sightings and we had a close encounter with a bull male elephant who decided to get up close and personal and stare us down.

We have seem lots of birds (the banana birds have been everywhere and loads of fun), impalas, Nyalas, baboons, kudo, mongoose, rhinos and hippos and some odd animals here and there whose names I forget.

The weather has been variable. Mornings are very cold and the days warm up to about 75-80. The past few days have been quite sunny, but today is overcast.

Last, but not least, we had a wonderful presentation and lecture on snakes this morning after breakfast. The lecturer brought a green mamba, a cobra, a puff adder, a python and something else pretty dangerous, a green tree snake of some kind, that is the most venomous snake in the world. He did all sorts of demonstrations with the snakes to show how docile and sweet they were. His most interesting tale included the fact that a black mamba roams free into his house and lives on the open support beams over his living room. He comes home each evening and hangs out while they watch TV, then goes to sleep for the night and then goes out for the day and returns each evening.

We've had one bush breakfast and our boma dinner is tonight. More tomorrow or whenever I have a chance to post. Off to lunch!