Arathusa Safari Lodge blog

Xivambalana (Karula's male cub) by Ryan Johnston

Sunday

The morning started off very overcast and it looked like we’d be in for some rain a little later on during the day. We headed out towards the eastern sector, where we found small groups of male buffalo all over the place, as well as a lone rhino grazing peacefully by [...]

Sunset at Arathusa by Ryan Johnston

Sunday

Another week, and with it some more surprises.  This morning started off with us finding one of our territorial male rhinos. After leaving him we then came across the tracks of the four young Tsalala lionesses and the Styx male. It didn’t take us long to find the five of them all sprawled out in the [...]

Female leopard 'Ntima' by Phillip Wessels

Sunday

This morning we found the four rhinos grazing around the airstrip again. We also saw a herd of 15 elephants, and Ntima was south-east of the airstrip making her way east. We followed her for a while, but eventually lost sight of her when she moved into some thicker bush.

In the afternoon [...]

Baby elephant charging by Ryan Johnston

Sunday

The bush has literally exploded into a palette of greens with all the early rain we had in October. We started the morning off with a large herd of about 40 elephants feeding on one of our open areas. We sat with them for quite a while, as the babies were particularly [...]

André 'Frodo' Froneman on bush walk by Ryan Johnston

Sunday

We welcomed yet another great week with a pack of 19 Wild dogs cavorting on our open area this morning. We arrived just in time to witness three of the adults chase a female impala straight into the dam. She swam a lot [...]

Male leopard 'Mafufunyane' with impala kill by Armand Minnaar

Monday

This morning’s drive was fantastic. Nice and warm, with lots of leopards around. We even managed to find Mafufunyane with a small female impala kill, although he had almost finished it by the time we got to him. Ntima also had an impala kill, which she’d carefully stashed in a thicket. From the [...]

Tsalala lioness by André 'Frodo' Froneman

Monday

We kicked the morning off with a sighting of a large elephant bull close to camp, and a little while later we found two rhinos grazing. We then decided to see if we could locate the two Ottawa male lions again. We returned to where we’d last seen them, but they’d since moved on. [...]

Hippo by André 'Frodo' Froneman

Monday

This morning started off with a lot of vocalising coming from lions to the east of the lodge. We decided to follow up, and much to our surprise found the young Styx male with a full belly. From the look of things he’d been chased off a kill, hence all the noise we’d heard. He continued calling as he [...]