Or: “Snow Warnings, Roaring Lions, and Absolutely No Foreshadowing”
Today I’m writing from one of my favourite places on this currently overheating rock of a planet: Buffalo Thorn Tree Lodge, nestled within Black Rhino Game Reserve in the Pilanesberg. This morning the mercury read a brisk 3 degrees, and there are actual snow warnings in effect for next week. Yes. Snow. In Africa. But I’ll take frozen extremities over defrosting geysers and coaxing a suicidal printer back to life in urban Pretoria any day.
I’m back in the bush, and things feel… right again.
But let’s skip the small talk and dive straight into the drama, the magic, and the long-winded leopard epiphany this week has kindly delivered.
Out on gamedrive in a very cold Black Rhino.
Sunday night kicked things off with a trip to Manyane to see Tay and Debbie. The lions had been welded to an elephant carcass for a week—until I arrived, obviously. Then they vanished like budget oversight in a government megaproject. Monday, I rolled into Black Rhino and voilà!—the lions were back. Naturally.
Whatever. I was just happy to be back.
Tuesday delivered cheetahs unsuccessfully trying to murder impalas, and a pretty decent 7/10 sighting of the three Western Breakaway boys—points docked for bad lighting and the refusal to do anything remotely majestic—currently throwing their weight around Black Rhino. Solid day in the office.
Wednesday, the Shefari Safaris team came through for a site inspection. We set out to find those same three lions. Instead, we were treated to roars echoing through the bush—like a trailer for a movie you don’t get to see. No lions. But oh boy, did we get something better. A leopard sighting so good it deserved slow-motion, a Hans Zimmer score, and Morgan Freeman narrating…
And I’ll admit, this sighting tested every ounce of patience I had left. The kind of patience that’s usually reserved for waiting on Telkom to answer the phone — we all know how that ended. But after hours of bush telephones, second-hand radio chatter, and what felt like divine misdirection, we found him. A leopard. A real one. And in that moment — with the engine off, the bush dead still, and my heartbeat doing the Macarena — everything changed.
But we’ll get there. Eventually.
That night involved a braai, some wine, and the sort of spirited oversharing that only happens when you mix bush people, firelight, and some wine. By the end of the evening, we’d covered the lineage of every known leopard in the park, caught up on the lion drama like it was an episode of The Real Housewives of Pilanesberg, and dissected all current and past sighting affairs of the park with surgical precision. Like your typical family braai — except our juicy stories walk on four legs and occasionally try to kill each other.
The next morning delivered a private sighting of one of the male lions from the night before, now posing like he was getting paid. Job done. Time for tea and therapy.
Thursday Morning’s private sighting.
Thursday: more cheetah drama. Scent marking, dashing about, drinking from the lodge’s watering hole.
It was one of those moments — golden hour light, tail flicking in slow motion, the cheetah pausing to sip like it was auditioning for a Nat Geo cover. And there I was, frozen. Because I knew — deep in my gut — that the second I reached for the camera, it would vanish. Which it promptly did.
Some moments are just meant to be enjoyed with your eyes, a grateful heart, and a faint scream echoing inside your soul
Friday: Operation Find the Lions commenced again…and failed. Again. That’s nature. She’s mean sometimes.
And to those of you reading this: if you want to come find cats, sit with them, photograph them, and spend hours with them, if fate’s in a good mood—well, get in touch. This is what we live for.
Catch you in Part Two, where I’ll dive into the full backstory, the red tape, the unexpected twists, and the leopard that made all the nonsense worth it. There may or may not be a subplot involving personal vindication, and at least one spiritual crisis.
Funny, isn’t it? You can chase a dream for years, get bulldozed by red tape, dodgy management, and existential printer issues, and still — one afternoon, with a camera in hand and zero expectations — it all lines up. A leopard. A lens. And a lifetime’s worth of vindication.
Wildlife Beyond the Lens 