As the great migration moves on from us to greener pastures in the north we all experience a degree of sadness. After a truly wonderful month or so of Gnu’s everywhere we miss their clowning around, their long sad faces, their endless hunch backed stroll across the plains, the frenzied activity of the rut...but they’ll be back. Quite frankly though we don’t miss them for long as the game viewing after the big herds move through has always been superb during the last few seasons, and this year was no different.

The Cheetah of Grumeti
The elusive leopards have been made famous for years in the Sabi Sand, South Africa, and Singita Ebony and Boulders enjoy some of the best leopard viewing in Africa. Across to the east of the Kruger National Park, Singita Lebombo and Sweni lodges are in the heart of lion territory, with huge prides of no fewer than 22 ruling the roost there. Here, out on the quintessential African plains, the cheetah is our flagship big cat and we are fortunate to see lots of the worlds fastest land animal.

The females, mostly solitary except when accompanied by their cubs, tend to focus most of their hunting on Thomson’s gazelle. The Thommie is accredited with the silver medal for sprinting, with a top speed of 70 km/h. Only the cheetah eclipses them into first place with a top speed of about 110 km/h. The short grass left by the marauding herds of wildebeest and zebra provide ideal habitat for the little Thommies, and about 350 000 pass through our concession over these months, the tail-end of the great migration.