The birds were calling to the common, deer-like impala drinking by the water with their ears pricked up looking over in our direction. The monkeys were screeching and the two jeeps ahead pulled to a holt. Something was going on here. We had reached a fork and the two jeeps had turned right so we turned left hoping to get a good viewing and looked in the bushes. There it was. A leopard was leisurely walking through the woods while the other wildlife was freaking out. It was looking around and occasionally at us, but we knew that it couldn’t see us exactly, only the outline and shape of the vehicle which it was used to seeing. It lay down and started to groom itself for about 10 seconds then it was on the move. It was not walking away from us,  but in our direction and then it was stood straight ahead, in front of us. Practically brushing the front of our jeep, while everyone was literally holding their breath. Cameras over our eyes but mostly watching, living the moment. The leopard walked to the other side of the road and looked back at us.

I know you may think we were in a zoo on a drive through trip but actually that’s incorrect, we decided as a family to go on a safari holiday with Exodus Travels. Because we all love animals we took an 11 hour plane to Johannesburg, travelled through Kruger National park and up to the Zimbabwe border to cross over to get to Matopos National park. We then carried on up to Hwange and further to Victoria Falls. In Kruger we saw a leopard and five lions walking, yawning and relaxing 10 / 15 metres away and at Motopos a beautiful white rhino which we walked with until we notice we were stood between a male and a female with a calf. Hwange was also amazing, we saw another lion far off and along with all this a hyena cub, hunderds of elephants, literally, and almost as many giraffes, monkeys, baboons, zebras, warthogs, buffalos etc.

We were so lucky and are so grateful for our experience. It was a complete enjoyment and we totally recommend it to animal lovers like ourselves.

By Ella

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