Monday, February 23, 2009

5 Feb 2009

After 2 1/2 days in Pilanesberg Park, we drove back to Hartbeestpoort and stayed again in the same 'belgian' guesthouse.

The hosts convinced us to spend 1 day at Ukutula, Ukutula is a place dedicated to educational lion-breeding project. You can feed cubs, approach and touch lions which are up to 1year old and see other older lions and lionnesses which are protected by a fence (otherwise I would be there anymore to wrote this blog :-) )
Ukutula is also a place where people take car of wounded lions like this one which a (again) a true show-maker !
Ukutula is a place where you can observ white lions, in this case a lionness, with splendid blue eyes
Then we had a walk 'beyond the fence', of course with a professional ranger, to see and touch the youngest males (up to 1 year old), amazing moments...
We continued and saw (this time separated by a fence) the 'older' males (2-3 year old)
They are big boys and like big boys they like to play ...
Even if their ground is huge they prefer the proximity to sleep :-)
This male could make advertising for Colgate...
And this one seems to be falling down from the bed...:-)

Finally we could approach, the big big boy...Felix, the boss of the area with his 8 females
At last the magic moment, the lion cubs running everywhere...
Ladies first...
I had also my pleasure :-)

Despite the touristic aspect, the Ukutula people are really taking care of the lions, feeding them with entire animals (boks, etc...) and not piece of meat so they can keep their natural instinct.

After these emotions, we went for a Quad tour, nice one with 250cm3...

2 comments:

  1. Excellent tout ça, ça fait envie !
    le petit lion apas l'air farouche dis moi !
    T'as pas essayé avec le big boy ? Il avait l'air encore + doux ;)

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  2. You were both very brave to "cuddle" those big cats !! but it looks like it was worth being brave, they are so beautiful !

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