As we are in the middle of winter, we have had to brace extremely cold nights in Mana Pools and sharing stories around the campfire each evening provides a warm and welcoming escape from the cold. We have had some fantastic wildlife experiences in the last few weeks from leopard sightings in broad daylight to seeing lions make their way through camp, a few meters away. Little Vundu has received a lot of love and will be opening mid-July to its first guests which is very exciting! We had a really rare sighting at Vundu Camp a few days ago where we spotted a puff adder. We captured it, after snapping a few pictures and then released it far, far away from camp.

The wild dogs have been seen around our side of the National Park in the first few weeks of July with some of our guests even being lucky enough to watch them hunting a group of impalas. Peter Blinston from Painted Dog Conservation spent a week in Mana Pools to monitor the collared dogs’ activity. After many hours of searching, he successfully found both the packs in tip-top condition and with all their collars still working… good dogs indeed! Nick had the privilege of seeing the puppies for the first time last week, where there were 11 in total, that looked happy and healthy. Last year out of the 11 puppies, nine survived which is an incredible success rate in the wild.

Lions lions lions! We have seen them everywhere from camp, to walking safaris and even a few mating pairs camp for the past three days now. During the night, it sounds like a real concert with the lions calling and answering each other from all different parts of the park and the occasional leopard being heard in the background and the constant crying from the monkeys.