High drama in the Karoo bushveld at Samara Karoo Reserve

What’s that sound?” Rosemariè asked from somewhere deep beneath the covers. I’d been awake for nearly an hour, listening to a plaintive animal yipping as it circled our camp but, due to the subzero Karoo winter temperatures, hadn’t bothered to open the tent flaps to investigate.

“Probably a jackal smelling the remains of our dinner last night,” I ventured. Half an hour later, as we gathered for pre-game drive coffee in the mess tent, ranger Roelof Wiesner told a different story.

“It’s a cheetah in distress,” he said. “Yesterday we saw a female with cubs in this area and it possibly means they’ve been separated… probably by lions.”

Neither Rosemariè, me, nor our two fellow guests said anything. If this was true, then it was almost certainly very bad news for the cubs.

With the four-tent Plains Camp at Samara Karoo Reserve having opened less than a week before our visit, none of us wanted to be its first witnesses of tragedy. We piled into the game-viewing vehicle and, with Wiesner behind the wheel and Rowin Benade in the tracker’s seat, went looking.

We initially went in the wrong direction until a radio call from the camp staff said they had a lone cheetah visual and quickly steered us in the right direction. It wasn’t long before we were about 50m behind the animal, still mewyipping piteously.

ALSO SEE: WATCH: Southern Sun de Wagen boutique hotel re-opens after devastating flood

It was a sound I’d never heard before but one I will never forget. It’s absolutely heart-wrenching. Our guides soon established it was not the mother but a young male cheetah who had recently been introduced to the reserve from the Kalahari – the staff call them The Kalahari Boys – with his brother.

The two young cheetahs had formed a coalition and were successful hunters but were still new to the dangers of Samara. The missing male wore a telemetry collar and Benade soon had the tracking equipment in his hands and began scanning the area.

After a few minutes, he received a faint ping from a thick grove of acacias and scrub on the banks of a drainage line a couple of kilometres away. The echoes grew stronger as we approached. The tension mounted – not only were the electronic signals static, which meant the animal wasn’t moving, but they seemed to come from a spot that was surrounded by a herd of giraffes all staring fixedly towards a central point.

“They usually do that when they’ve spotted lions,” said Wiesner grimly. I noted Rosemariè’s eyes closed and lips moving in silent prayer. The expressions of the Ecuadorean father and daughter who were sharing camp and the drive with us were equally fraught.

The giraffes remained in place, still staring, which meant the lions had given up the stalk and were laying up for the day.

That afternoon, we encountered the reunited brothers lolling in long grass as they basked in the weak sun. They seemed unperturbed about their close call, allowing us to get to within 20m of them on foot. Our relief, however, was immense. “People think that when one member of a coalition like this die, the chances of survival of the other are halved,” said Wiesner.

“In fact, the odds drop much further. “Not only does the survivor not have a partner in the hunt but he also doesn’t have someone to watch his back… especially when he’s feeding on a kill. “That’s when cheetahs are most vulnerable to lion attacks,” added Wiesner.

NOW READ: Primitive luxury in the middle of the Kruger bushveld