Extract: An early morning lion encounter

“That morning saw the beginning of our game-drive training, something I had not received in any great detail from my ‘mentor’ Anton – he with the muscles of Superman and the brain of a dung beetle, mercifully no longer anywhere near Sasekile. We headed out as the sun pinkened the eastern sky. I loved being out of camp before any guest had stirred. Solomon was in the driver’s seat, I was on the rear bench alone and the others were spread between us. They each had a map of the reserve, and I’d told them to navigate us onto the airstrip.

‘Okay, bud’ – Jerome, head covered in some sort of designer beanie that he’d carefully placed Boyzone-style with his fringe sticking out, was still on a high after his evening with Candice –‘take a left, then first left again.’ He turned his map around, trying to orientate himself.

Solomon turned right out of camp.

‘I said left!’ squeaked Jerome. ‘You not even using a map!’

‘Planes land every day.’ Solomon pointed to the southwest. ‘The airstrip must be there.’

Jerome was silenced, and in five minutes we were on the apron of the strip.

‘Now we listen,’ I said. Solomon cut the engine to take in the slowly building winter oratorio. First a grey-headed sparrow chirruped on a fallen knobthorn just off the apron, then a crested francolin squarked from the drainage line south of the strip. This set off a few others. The Cape turtle dove chorus rose with the brightening day. Finally, a lion roared, his calls reverberating through the Tsessebe River valley.

A lion calling is a great test of how connected people feel to nature. Most people don’t need to be hushed when a lion roars; they do it instinctively, overwhelmed by the power of the sound and its primal resonance.

‘Oh, wow,’ Franci said eventually.

‘Epic,’ said Katie. ‘Jissus, bru,’ said Jasper. ‘Is he angry?’

‘My oupa –’

‘Jerome, shut up about your oupa. If you had guests, this would be a golden opportunity – they want to find the lion, not talk about your oupa. When that lion is fast asleep under a bush in bad light, and you’ve exhausted your knowledge of lion biology, then, and only then, may you consider telling stories about your oupa. Right now there’s a lion to be found!’

The group looked at me, expectant.

‘Donald, where do you think ‘Hey! That’s a lion vocalising!’ he is?’ I asked the man who’d burst Jerome. ‘My oupa and me, been ‘training’ for seven we used to –’ months.

‘Quiet, Jerome!’ I snapped. ‘Just north of the river, on The rest of the roars we enjoyed Black Mane Clearings.’ in silence, right until the ‘I would agree. Katie, you navigate last grunt. Jerome made to us to Black Mane Clearings speak again but I held up my quick as you can.’ hand as we let the sound ebb. Donald pointed at a spot on the map and a few seconds later we were bumping through the dawn towards the Tsessebe. Katie, with a little help from Donald, took us down to the river and in the middle of the causeway I told Solomon to stop and turn off the engine.

The Tsessebe was a winter trickle but life on the river was waking – a hamerkop called from upstream, a red-faced cisticola flitted onto a reed next to the car and whistled ‘Psss, pss, pss ps ps …’ and a Goliath heron stepped through a curtain of reeds to examine another pool for breakfast. Then the lion roared again, much closer this time.

‘There!’ Franci pointed to the northeast.

‘That’s Black Mane Clearings,’ said Donald.

‘Let’s go!’ said Katie. ‘Over the causeway and take the next left!’

Excitement fizzed through the vehicle.

‘My oupa said –’ began Jerome. ‘Shut up, Jerome,’ said

Franci and Katie in unison.

A minute later we moved through a copse of combretum trees onto Black Mane Clearings. I spotted the cat almost immediately but I was used to looking for leonine shapes in the half-light. Bar Jasper, everyone searched frantically, desperate to be the first to find him.

‘Huh, check it out, there he is,’ Jasper said quietly, having done nothing more than glance around him.

No one heard him. I suppose he could have pointed, but his body was too wrapped up in sarongs to extricate a hand.

‘There! He’s there!’ shouted Jerome. ‘I found him!’ He pointed frantically.

Solomon stopped the vehicle – we were 50 metres or so from the great cat.

‘Jerome,’ I whispered, ‘there is no need to shout at us – if we were guests, you’d want to enhance the sense of wilderness we were feeling. This is all about creating an atmosphere of wonder. Blethering at high volume into the dawn is going to do the opposite.’

Jerome’s eyes glazed over. ‘Let’s get closer!’

‘Just wait a sec – there’s no need to park on top of the animal. Solomon, switch off the car and let’s all be quiet for a minute.’ I spoke softly yet urgently, as I might to guests seeing a lion for the first time.

The engine died as the sun finally peeped up over the horizon. The lion sat up and looked around him – he’d obviously heard something out of our pathetic human earshot. A single ray caught him on the right side of his face, his eye shone and he began to roar once again. Puffs of condensed breath caught the sunlight with each roar.

All the trainees bar Jerome were mesmerised. Sitting in the first row of the game viewer, Jerome was fiddling with a bag at his feet.

‘Jerome, what are you doing?’ hissed Katie, who was sitting next to him. ‘Can’t you sit still?’

‘I’m getting my camera!’ Soon a large DSLR with a 600millimetre lens emerged from under his feet. The lion was in the final stages of his roar when Jerome aimed and depressed the shutter, eliciting the photographic equivalent of rapid fire.

For Franci, who was hungover and hangry, this was too much.

‘F**k sakes, Jerome, is that really necessary? I mean, sh*t ’– she pointed at the cat –‘the f**king lion is dead still? Why the f**k do you need to take seven thousand pictures like that?’

‘You don’t know photography,’ Jerome replied, defiant. ‘And don’t swear at me like that.’ He aimed the camera again and fired off a few more shots.

The engine died as the sun finally peeped up over the horizon. The lion sat up and looked around him – he’d obviously heard something out of our pathetic human earshot. A single ray caught him on the right side of his face, his eye shone and he began to roar once again. Puffs of condensed breath caught the sunlight with each roar