Today was great! For the 8 year old travelling with us today was the day he knew he was in Africa and not in some other random poor country where the traffic is horrendous and the lights sometimes don't work. Today we saw lions, giraffes and elephants. We saw zebra, impala and wildebeest. We saw one lonely hippopotamus! We saw lots of birds including three species of vulture circling over the lions kill.

Our day started at 5:00 am when, yawning and half asleep we boarded the daladala our KiSwahili teacher Ben had arranged for and set off for Mikumi NP. The daladala driver was excellent! He only talked on his mobile phone while driving for a little while, he mostly kept to the left side of the road and his speed was moderate especially over the speed humps and rumble strips. The twice we were stopped by the police he was polite and respectful and we were allowed to keep going without any extra checking. He negotiated some fairly challenging tracks in the national park - tracks I would be thinking twice about in a 2WD car!

Our first excitement was seeing giraffes - they are the animals I most wanted to see. They are so graceful and so beautifully coloured and patterned and each one is different. My new binoculars brought them so close. Seeing the giraffes made the 5:00 am start worthwhile! We hadn't even seen impala before we saw the giraffes, (and if you've been on safari in Africa you know you will see impala!) but we saw plenty of impala and one small group of élan.

Mikumi has a pool, about 80m x 50m, called the Hippo Pool and the eponymous animal was there floating, drifting slowly and twitching his ears occasionally to show he wasn't just a rock! Exciting if you've not seen a hippo but disappointing for a veteran of the Zambezi Booze Cruise.

There were many impala, one group had some élan hanging around with them. We saw very many zebra - the sort without the extra shadow stripe - and often wildebeest were with them though they seemed much more shy of our vehicle. It wasn't until near to the end of our safari that we saw elephants close up but as a bonus, the group of elephants included a young one.

For most the most exciting sighting would be the lion, and we were privileged to see a single female guarding a kill and also a family group. The lone female was hard to see as she was so well camouflaged in the grass. The kill was out in the open and had attracted the attention of at least 20 vultures - opportunistic birds who circled about overhead and settled in the grass some distance from the lion and also in several nearby trees. A marabou stork was with the vultures - he looked quite odd perched in the tree! Many from our group clambered up onto the roof of the daladala to get a slightly better view. The second group of lions was lolling about under a tree. One was lying on her back waving her legs about and looking quite relaxed. We were able to get quite close to this group by backing the daladala down a bumpy track. Our guide was telling us to be silent so as not to disturb the group which seemed a bit silly as the bus' reverse warning system was very loud!

The rest area where we had lunch was like the rest areas in the northern part of Kruger NP - a cleared area with just a rope fence around the picnic tables and benches - certainly not animal proof. It did have a very large boab tree with a ladder that could be climbed in an emergency.

It really was great day. Steve interested many in the birds we were seeing and as a consequence had to share his binoculars. I happily handed mine around the daladala too. We hope to see many more animals in the next 12 months but is always fun to be with people having the excitement of seeing them for the first time!

See if you can see the lion in the picture below. She is there!! Look closely to the left of the kill.

Here is another lion

 This lion was much easier to spot.

Lion spotting from the roof of a daladala - Zoe, Abraham, Marike, the driver, Pepe and Lou.

The vultures waiting in the trees