Besides the cubs, there are also a full-grown lion and his 3 lionesses at the Tweeling lodge. After breakfest we went to see them have their breakfast, and we finallly got some real good lion watching on this our last day. These huge cats are kept behind electric fences, and after watching them eat a gazelle for breakfast we appreciated these safety precations highly.

After having enjoyed the adult lions, we went to pay the cubs a visit. We watched them eating and had a bit of a play with them, and Linda dicovered that even these little cute lions have claws. One of them cought Linda off guard and scratched her leg when it reached out through the chicken wire. How cool is that, a wound from a lions paw! I would have "maintained" if forever :-)

The weatherman reported low clouds over Nelspruit with a base of about 300 ft. During the morning it was supposed to clear a bit, but in the afternoon it was supposed to worsen again and even start raining. CC confirmed it didn't look to good over Bush Air, but he would send us regular SMS'es to keep us up-to-date during the flight.

By 9am, when we were ready to go, the sky was blue. There were practically no clouds at all. We decided to track more-or-less directly east, trying to get as close to Bush Air as possible. If the weather would deteriorate to a degree such that we could not fly any longer we would just choose one of the many airfields in the vicinity and land.

The haze indeed did increase as we moved towards the east and clouds started forming, but never to such an extent that it became a problem. There was lot's of space between the cloud base and the ground for us to get through.

We flew over Swaziland and wondered why the airspace over a solitary villa on a hilltop was declared restricted ... until we found out that this of course was one of the kings many palaces.

From Swaziland to the Bush Air was a piece of cake. I've flown in much worse weather than that.

Back at the Barberton Vally Airfield CC greeted us welcome. I told him about the rough landing in Maun whereupon he gave CRO a closer inspection and noticed that it possibly had taken more of a hit then we had assumed. He called the insurance company and was told the plane was to be grounded until a technician had taken a closer look.

The rest of the afternoon was spent on doing paperwork like updating the log book, writting and incident report (PDF) on the Maun landing, and the like. We packed for the return to Europe the next day (yes, it was a bit of a close call to return the plane just one day before going home) .

The evening was very pleasant. CC and Shirley had invited friends over for dinner. Stories and anecdotes were told and lot's of alcohol was consumed.