One of my favorite places we've visited so far has been Ukutula Lion Park and Lodge. We took Chase's family here for an over night and completely fell in love with the place. Ukutula is located about an hour and a half away from Pretoria. As you enter the property you start driving down a long dirt road, and feel as though you are on a mini game drive. We saw a couple blesbok grazing and a few other small antelope on our way in. Since we were staying the night we reserved a family sized two room chalet. It had a small kitchen and a living space which made it perfect for us to play games and relaxing. Ukutula offers a variety of activities they have a lion interaction program, a walk with lions, and a game drive. We chose to stick with the lion program and walk. The property itself has several chalets in various sizes, a nice dining area and boma (outdoor fire area), and two swimming pools. You also have the option of self catering your food as most of the chalets have a fire pit and kitchen or you can choose the catered option in which a chef prepares a set menu for each meal. Out of ease we chose the catered option, but quickly found that my picky eating children were not as impressed with the food as the adults were.
Once we were settled, we enjoyed a relaxing morning hanging out and swimming in the pool. That after noon we all participated in the lion interaction program, this is a two hour program in which you get to hold baby lions, play with the more frisky pre-teens, and walk around the cages of the big cats all while learning about lions daily lifestyle and behavior as well as how the handlers work with them at the park. The highlight for me was definitely holding the baby lions. I couldn't get enough of their cuteness! After holding the babies we moved on to the pre-teen group also known as the "devils". They are a bit larger and known for being extra frisky. The boys were both two small to go into this caged area so they stood outside and watched as we went in. The guide explained to us that you don't want to turn your back to this age group, because when your not looking they will try to pounce. Two of the lions were very interested in the kids and were practicing their stalking techniques on them. Mitchell soon learned that if he turned is back to the fence they would run up to it, so this quickly became a game for the kids and the lions. After the "devils" we moved on to the bigger cats. They have a wide variety of large cats not just lions, so it was neat to hear about the other cats as well.
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| An intense game of checkers |
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| Our Elephant Chalet |
Another highlight of staying at the lodge is simply being able to hear the lions through out the day. When lions communicate with each other it's not the classic roar you would expect and what we are used to hearing from TV. Instead, they talk with each other through deep moaning sounds they are shorter then a long roar, and will continue to do this for several minutes at a time. There are certain times through out the day that they do this more frequently typically early evening and very early mornings. It was wonderful to sit out on our patio sipping coffee and listening to the lions.
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| One of the "Devils" |
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| The boys teasing the "devils" |
The next morning Chase and I headed off to walk with the lions, (Chase's parents did this the day before). Again, this is something the children are not able to do so we split into two groups so that all of us adults could have a turn. Walking with the lions is an amazing experience. We went out with a large group in the morning and had about 5 Lions walking with us. These lions are 18mo to 2 years old, after 2 years old we were told they start to be more dominant and won't listen to the handlers as well. Prior to the lions meeting us we were all given large walking sticks to hold as we walked and were told that if a lion was too close to us or appearing to do something we were not comfortable with that we should give them a little poke. I am not sure how much confidence I had in the stick, but held on tight just in case. When they released the lions a couple of them came up and greeted us by walking up to us, smelling us, and brushing against our legs. We were also told not to touch the lions as they may get a mixed signal. The handlers led us down a dirt path and as we walked along with the lions the guide talked to us all about them. It was incredibly informative and just amazing to see the things they could do. The whole time as we were walking the handlers kept throwing chicken pieces to the lions to keep them distracted from us and to keep them focused on the walk. Every so often along the path we would stop and they would show us some of the lions abilities. Walking along the lions was a truly unique experience and one that I would highly recommend should you ever have the chance! I have some amazing video of our walk also, but unfortunately the blog having trouble uploading it.
After the lion walk we got one more chance to snuggle the babies before we left, it was perfect. As we drove out of the park it seemed that several animals came to say goodbye to us. We saw monkeys, zebra, antelope, giraffes, and Ostrich all on our way out, it was the perfect farewell and come back soon!
Over all we had a fabulous visit with the Grandma and Grandpa Hartz it was wonderful to have a piece of home here in Africa and to show off our home here! We are looking forward to more visitors soon!!
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