Most incredible walking safari

We had a couple that stayed with us at Singita Ebony for five nights, at the beginning of March. It was a first time safari experience for them, every single thing was mind blowing, and we saw beautiful sightings. However, it came to a point where they were satisfied with what they experienced while driving, and decided they’d like to accept the offer of a walking safari.

On this beautiful morning we decided to do a bit of a drive until sunrise, and then start walking. We stopped to prepare ourselves somewhere close to the airstrip to start walking. Within five minutes of the walk we spotted tracks of a mating pair of leopards the tracks appeared to be very fresh. I explained to them that it was a good thing that we were walking because if it means that if the leopards were actively mating we would hear the growls of them doing so.

We only walked for about 20 metres from where we first saw the tracks and we heard a loud grunting noise coming from the same direction as the rising sun. From our position we couldn't see anything but the sound was not far. Because we were not too sure of where the sound came from exactly, we then had to carry on with our walk and leave the area. It took us about 45 minutes to return back to the game viewer and when we finally got back to the vehicle we started searching for that mating pair we heard earlier. Luckily they didn't move far from where we first heard them growling and we found them - it was one of the most beautiful leopard sightings to watch.

After that day the same two leopards were seen again two days in a row doing the same activity, and we followed them until they separated at the end of the mating period.