Rosa related how they would go to the Kruger Park for three-week periods, leaving the camps early in the morning, at gate-opening time, and returning as the gates were closing.
She explained how in this way, they didn’t miss out on a single minute looking for animals, in spite of the days being long, hot and tiring.
This meant two weeks of waking early, making sandwiches and filling flasks, and then riding around all day.
Exhausted, she told her husband one day that she wanted to lie-in and start game viewing slightly later in the morning.
“I told my husband to go and have a lovely morning drive,” she said.
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Decision to go out on a game drive pays off
However, as she was saying good-bye to her husband, he asked whether she was sure she wanted to remain behind. “I told him I was certain,” said Rosa. “He said ‘Ok, better hope I don’t find a lion up a tree or something like that!”
At his words, Rosa felt something stir inside of her. At her husband’s mention of a lion, she determined: “Well I couldn’t risk that as I really hate missing out on stuff, so I jumped up, got ready in a hurry and we set off. You could have knocked me over with a feather as when we were about half an hour into the drive, on the S28 outside Lower Sabie camp, we came across something right at the very top of a tall, straight tree.”
Unusual sighting catches game viewers’ attention
Something was at the top of a tree and Rosa and her husband were not going to drive past before getting a closer look. They could hardly believe what their eyes saw. On closer inspection, this turned out to be a lioness!
Even more amazing was the surprise that awaited beneath the tree. This was seven male lions.
The lioness was in season and had climbed the tree in desperation to escape the male lions’ attention.
However, she had become uncomfortable in the tree and Rosa explained how, seeming to defy gravity, she had started to make her way, headfirst, down the trunk of the tree.
Rosa described the scintillating moment. “It was an unbelievable sight.”
Lioness leaps from tree of refuge
She eventually took a leap of faith, jumping from the treetop to the ground. “As soon as she hit the ground running, the males took chase again,” said Rosa. “We managed to photograph six of the seven males.”
The seventh male was too fast in chasing after the lioness to be caught on camera.
Rosa and her husband now have a joke which they share between them. She said that each time she now says to him that she will be staying in to relax while he goes on a game drive, he only has to say ‘lion up a tree’ and she snaps out of it and agrees to go.
The couple will never forget the hilarious and breathtaking sight of how a lioness climbed the tallest tree to escape the love interest of seven determined male lions.