Casela Nature Park, Mauritius - 29th December 2011

A few years ago Sam and I decided to head over to Mauritius to check things out. I didn't know a lot about Mauritius apart from what what a mate at work had told me who had grown up there, the main reason we chose Mauritius was that as we were in Western Australia doing a walk and that would mean a shorter flight than if we left from the east coast. It was that simple!

On the safari bus going to see the lions.

From our base at Flic en Flac we did a few tours around the island, today's trip was to go walking with the lions in Casela Nature Park. I'm not normally a fan of these confected wildlife adventures preferring to see the animals in the wild, but as we were talking lions I couldn't really see us taking a casual stroll with them through the African savannah.

Hmmm lunch has arrived.

He seems to like the scratching.

Casela Nature Park was only a 20 minute journey from the Sugar Beach Resort where we were staying, and after negotiating the entry with our extensive French vocabulary we were soon on the open sided safari bus heading to our rendezvous (that's French isn't it!?) with the big pussy cats.

No girlie patting Sam.

I did tell you no girlie patting.

Luckily I'd come prepared for a walk in the scrub with some lions, wearing my lion proof havainas, although looking at the nervous faces of some of the punters that were also doing the walk I had a feeling I may have underestimated the situation. After going through the dos and don'ts, don't run, don't walk in front, don't get eaten (I may have made that one up) we were on our way. Thoughtfully the park provides you with a big stick with which to protect yourself from a hundred kilograms of hungry pussy, so I was fairly confidant we would survive.

The lions are a lot scarier up close, the thing that sticks in my mind was the languid way they move, they ooze power. The other feature of note is that the you can sense them eyeing you up on your suitability for a feed (in my case I think they were thinking entree, main and desert in one package!), the only other time I've had that feeling was when I'd been near Saltwater Crocodiles in the wild, your definitely not the top of the food chain here.

This one looks more interested in main course standing underneath him than the little piece of meat on the stick.

What could possibly go wrong?

After wondering around for awhile and having a couple of photo ops it was time to leave the lions, handing our sticks back in the guide performed a quick head count confirming that we all had made it out. Back on the safari bus we were now taken back to the most dangerous place we would be exposed to, the gift shop. Resisting the urge to buy a 'I survived the lions t-shirt' we instead took a walk around the rest of the park checking out some more of the animals.

After the excitement of the morning we spent a relaxing afternoon lying by the pool at the resort reading and swimming. Here's another place that we were already pencilling in that we would have to return to.

There were a few tigers chilling out in the tropical heat as well.

The Dirt.
The wildlife park has a restaurant, gift shop and plenty of other adventure activities if big cats don't float your boat. I think the walking with lions cost us around eighty dollars Aus, but like I said my French isn't great so it may have been 800, who knows! I really enjoyed being in with the lions and being able to interact with them, just remember no 'girlie' patting, the lions like it rough and scratchy, and I'm not gonna argue with them.

'Not the bloody Kingswood' on the road down to Flic en Flac.

That's our room over my shoulder.

The sun setting on another hard day in paradise, taken from our balcony.