Lions right outside our gate!
“Babe…..”
Steven’s soft voice pulled me out of my deep sleep. “Babe, I am so sorry but I had to wake you up for this!” He carried on whispering. The excitement in his voice was barely containable.
I sat up, not knowing what was up or down at that stage, barely awake. It was the middle of the night. My eyes struggled to focus on what Steven was pointing out. “Look at the gate!” He said as he pulled the blue curtains at our bedroom window open. My first thought was that the elephants had finally karate chopped our gate off. But upon closer inspection, the gates were still up and the motion sensor light was on.
“Look there, my angel!” Steven pointed outside again. And there, beautifully illuminated by our gate light, were two lions, right outside our gate!
I was fully awake immediately. Steven ushered me into the living room for a closer look. There was a young male and a smaller lioness. They were looking right at us! Because of the light that was on inside, they could probably see us moving around. I quickly switched it off. “How awesome is this, my love!! Steven said to me; beaming. I can’t believe the lions are right here!!” We have seen lions close to the house before ( read This is why I love living in Kruger National Park and A Lioness at the House), but never have we had them chilling right in front of our house!
Steven said that he was sitting outside looking at the stars when he heard something and when our motion-sensor gate light went on, the lions were right there. The male lions had sniffed our gate. He could probably smell where the warthogs have been pushing our gate open. Maybe I should ask him to have a heart to heart with our naughty varkies;-)
“Come, let’s go look at them outside!”
Steven said and he grabbed the spotlight and walked out our kitchen door. We crept outside, keeping close to the wall not to spook the lions. But unfortunately, our movement startled them and they got up and walked in the direction of our living quarters. Steven kept the spotlight on them as we walked closer to our fence. There were two more young lions we could see. Four in total!
Steven softly called to them. Like a lioness does when she calls out to her cubs. That made two of the lions turn around and look back at us. They were more curious than anything else, looking at us just as much as we were looking at them. Maybe they have walked past our house lots of times and were just as surprised to see humans this time around as we were to see lions!
The lions eventually disappeared back into the night. And I have to be honest, it took me a long time to fall back asleep again. But I told Steven he can wake me up for lions at our gate any time!!
Absolutely fantastic. How lucky! Thank you for sharing!
Wow what an awesome experience! After living 47 years in SA I am now back in Germany. I love living here but there is one thing I truly miss and that is the incredible nature and game reserves with all the beautiful sightings. I miss Kruger Park and Pilansberg.
Enjoy every minute in this wonderful environment.
Greetings from Germany
Heidi
Oh what a night ! I can guest how excited you were ! Thank you once again for parting wirh us this amazing moment. We , my husband and I, are longing for coming back to SA and aboive all to KNP. Maybe in september or november. We wil enter Malelane ( coming from Nelspruit by N4 ) . It will be a great pleasure if I can meet you. As you know , I m a faithfull follower and meeting you it will be a special and expected moment for me. We will stay at Lower Sabie and we expect our trip will be possible despite of the Covid crisis ( ending…let’ s hope so ! ) and this international frightening conjoncture. Hugs from Reunion island .
Hi Nicham, Please send me a message closer to the time! Let’s see if we can plan something! Cheers, Linda
You are sooo lucky. What a fantastic experience.
Sorry for the ptevious comment. I ‘ m Nicham not Nocyam. Typing too fast.?
What a wonderful thing to be woken for!! O would be thrilled to bits.
Oh what a night : thank you for parting with us this amazing moment ! So great ! i can guess your exciting ! We, my husbanf & I, are longing for coming back to SA especially to KNP next september or november. It will be great for me to meet you !!! Yes, so great ! We will be driving from Nelspruit , entering to Malelane gate and staying at Lower Sabie for about 1 week. We are longing for our coming back to KNP ,. Hope the Covid crisis will be behind us …and this International Russian conjoncture will be solved and not becoming a world crisis. Your faithfull follower from the French Reunion island ( near Mauritius ) . Big hugs.
Hi Linda, What a wake up call. Brilliant that you guys are so close to these sights.
I just love your posts! Makes me feel like I’m back in the bush and not sitting behind an electric fence in the city.
Well what an experience , I am sure you will have the lions any time outside your gate than the warthogs inside eating your plants?quite an experience and makes living in the Bush so special, thnx for sharing it !!
How absolutely awesome.
Your posts are so fun I really appreciate you sharing
AMAZING! Need get back to Kruger again sometime. Thanks for sharing. Barb
Divine, just simply divine. Wish I was there.
Wonderful, what a privilege to experience the lions visiting and being able to save the moment to share
with the boys.We are spoilt to have another blog so soon after the “varkies”.
Have a great day!
Wooza Linda. What a awesome site to be woken up to. This sure makes your heart beat faster.
Oh woooh . How nice .
such a lovely thing you have witnessed, just enjoy lions in their natural state of mind
I have a trip in August, so hopefully I get to see some
regards to Steve
Graham – Perth Aust
Geez – this is what all KNP campers hope to get when we pitch our camps near the fence – hope you see this pride many more times and the “varkies” stay well hidden in their den before the lions come to visit.
Dear Linda,
Wow, wow, wow – how amazing. Maybe a little spine chilling too? It would certainly put me off wanting to sleep outside on a stretcher to take advantage of the cool of the night. What a wonderful experience. I hope the warthogs were safely down their burrow.
Hi Linda,
What an amazing story and experience for you all and it really brings home the amazing life you, Steven and the kids have there living in the park. It’s also great to see you posting again, Deb and I have to live vicariously through you during our long absences from Kruger. All the best!
Joe & Deb
Wow how fantastic was that. I have just spent 3 weeks in the Kruger and had 3 lion sightings. I knnow the thrill of seeing those majestic cats.