The team has been staying at ‘Back to the Bridge backpackers’ in Maun, a place which lays upon its inhabitants a curse banning them from leaving in the form of continuing vehicle troubles. Well on our fourth ‘final’ night, thoroughly settled in we were cooking rotisserie chickens, roast potatoes and vedge all provided by the establishment. Unfortunately a slight miscalculation meant that we hit 10pm and the food still wasn’t ready. When you are living on African time (getting up literally with the sun and going to bed soon after dark at about 8:30) it was a trial to stay up. Still sambuca with gold bits in it ensured that I was wide awake and buzzing. Then he arrived….our saviour. They call him Martin and he is a part owner of the backpackers. In return for a plate of food he told us all about his day at his friend’s house where he had been playing with their lions all day. I almost chocked on my excellently cooked chicken and a plan was formed. ‘Would you like seconds?’

‘Oh yes’ said he

‘And could we visit your friends?’

‘But of course.’

Finally the spell was broken and with mounting excitement in my heart we left Maun and sped 3 hours in the wrong direction to Ghansi and Rustim Red.

Martin had joked that his butler hadn’t wanted to open the gate because of the lions sitting watching them. Sitting in the driver’s seat, my head starting to hurt I realised I had to swap seats, this meant I ended up in the front passenger seat – the gate opening seat. We came to a gate, I peered round, one ostrich but no lion…no house either. Then out of the dust appeared an Oasis in the desert, a white house surrounded by lush green lawns and fenced in with another gate. My hand was on the handle when I looked at the vegetable patch and saw ‘holy mother of superted’ a huge lion….no 2! Luckily the gardener opened the gate and we crept in in the safety of the vehicle.

We had only to get from Betty to the house, a 10m walk. But these lions were cunning and took a short cut, we were stuck! Then the gardener appeared, made some funny noises and the lions moved off…a little.

Grys, the lady of the house is a large, mother hen type woman who instantly whisked away our proffered gift of beer and returned with cold versions and cider for the girls complete with salt and lemon – utterly random but good so long as you don’t get distracted by lions and leave your cider to go flat, then it becomes strangely reminiscent of warm sea water. But anyway, Grys gave us a quick warning, ‘they are lions they bite and scratch’ and suddenly we were in a pen with the smallest lions. At only 2 months Tom, Dick and Bulldozer are the most adorable bundles of fun. No they are scary lions…no cute…no. I have given lions rummy tums (as one would to a dog), and stroked their backs. I have lain holding their paws whose pads feel like just like a soft leather jacket. Then suddenly, with an almost imperceptible change of eye colour their claws are out and they’ve taken a swipe. At 2 months it’s not hard to knock them down and soon it became a great game to tussle with these extraordinary animals.

Bulldozer, the smallest of the three and I became great friends cuddling and playing though he also seemed to think it was fun to try to nibble me through my jeans. Well I have now officially been bitten by a lion! Too soon the little ones were put to bed in a smaller enclosure and we hurried off after the meat tractor to see the other ‘problem animals’ around the farm. Grys and Chris are basically retired Africans who wanted to help conservation so take in animals that have been caught by farmers whilst trying to eat the live stock. In this way they have accumulated one leopard, 5 cheetah, 10 lions and 12 wild dogs. We watched in awe as the cheetahs queued at their gate, snarling and yet allowing the gate to be opened an inch. They grabbed the meat and sprinted, their spots a blur.

The wild dogs stayed well back from the gate allowing us to actually stand in their enclosure. They came forward only to grab the pile of what looked like offal before setting into it. We saw them rip and tear and suddenly realised they were eating an unborn foetus as one dog sprinted off with a tiny donkey form. Wild dogs are insane. I have nick-named them mini-mouse dogs due to their ridiculous ears, yet for all their wildness they still wag their tails and play with their food. Very cool.

Back at the house Sampson and Delilah (the two we had met when we came in) were eager to play. These two are 8 months old and roughly 8 times the size of the little ones. Knocking them down can be slightly harder especially if they have decided to try to bite your back. And yet they are utterly incredible. If you keep talking to them constantly they calm down and let you touch and pull and prod them up to a point. I tried singing to them – lion king songs of course and they tilted their heads, waggled their ears for a moment and then settled head on paws gazing at me with their huge yellow eyes while I held paws with them. I have to say I briefly considered sleeping on the ground with these beasts but wasn’t entirely certain I could keep up the singing all night!

One step up again…I was perched on top of Betty putting up our tent when an inquisitive Sebastian (a 3 year old king of Africa lion) decided to stand up on his hind legs to see what I was doing. Leaning over the side as I was, with his head reaching over the thin piece of wire standing between us, our heads cannot have been more than 30 cm apart. ‘Oh’ breathed I whilst on the ground Rob freaked out. It soon became a game. Brushing my teeth seated in front of Sebastian he suddenly took offence and launched himself at the fence while I rolled backwards in fright. (What fence?) That night, well let’s just say I didn’t sleep so well. Every time sleep engulfed me an objectionable roar would pull me back. The ladies are on heat and Sebastian had something to prove. At one point, hearing lion noises rather close at hand I peered out of the window only to see him set directly below me staring upwards. Cheeky lion!

Back on the road now but with a huge smile on my face. Lions are awesome!

Georgie