Dawn to dusk: A Day in the Life of a Lion Sands Guide

I sit here quietly, watching the gentle flow of the Sabi River while sipping a hot cup of coffee and listening to the songs of the choir around me. A distant roar of a lion pierces the cool morning air and the sun’s rays start to peak through the trees. A new day with endless possibilities awaits.

This is the beginning of a day in the life of a Lion Sands guide.

Every day in the bush is completely different, from the unique sightings we experience out on safari, to the various lodge events we offer. This is what keeps both guests and us as guides enjoying what we do daily.

The one question every guide has been asked is, “What do you do between morning and afternoon safari?” The answer to this is never straightforward, as there is so much to do on the property!

At Lion Sands, we are fortunate to have a team pushing for a culture of growth and striving for improvement. This is not restricted to our bush lives but extends to our personal journeys as well.

Days can be very busy depending on logistics. Guides and trackers pick up and drop guests off at the airport, which can take up a couple of hours in the day. There are days when we have dinner with guests around the fire at ‘Boma dinner’, meaning that day only ends after the meal. But this is something we all look forward to as the food is delicious.

We also do other bush activities between drives such as bush walks or taking kids out for spoor casting where they can take a mould of a track home with them as a memento.

Some days you’ll find some of us working at bettering our qualifications, which means studying workbooks, birds, trees and other aspects of the bush environment. In between all this, there’s always time for a game of backyard cricket.

The guiding team often conduct group activities to learn from each other. At times it’s trailing, track and sign, birding drives, and at least once every six weeks we do a shooting exercise to keep our eye in. Even though we never ever want to be in a situation to shoot an animal, it’s important that if the time comes when you need to fire a shot, we can do so with confidence.

The encouragement for personal growth in terms of health and well-being cannot be understated either. Many team members spend time in the gym, as a healthy body helps to create a healthy mind. Ultimately, activities like going to the gym help to keep us in shape and in a good mindset, allowing us to stay fresh and provide a quality experience for our guests.

Photography is something that many guides enjoy. We see such weird and wonderful things on safari, it would be a shame not to share that with the world. At Lion Sands we have a world-class creative lab where editing and printing photographs can be done. There will almost always be someone in that creative space working on footage and content.

It’s not all work and no play out here! We get days where we are off without any guests. On these days, the guides can be found having a braai (traditional South African barbecue) and keeping cool at the pool with a couple of drinks, especially during the hot summer months. We are also fortunate enough to be situated adjacent to the Kruger National Park in the area around Skukuza. The team will sometimes spend time on our own excursions into the park. The guides are always looking for an opportunity to head to the golf course, and getting a group together who are keen is seldom a challenge.

At Lion Sands, we have the most beautiful property to explore and amazing people to learn from.

We become a family through the time we spend together, and the variety of activities we partake in helps us to keep some sort of normality in an otherwise isolated environment. Every single day is different from the last, and the prospect of not knowing what tomorrow holds is the reason we wake up with a smile on our faces.