It’s an exercise in serenity, adrenaline, patience; a fight, a game well played by fish and angler alike, and as with all good games, some wins, usually more losses where only the largest of leviathans break free just before landing, but their promise and possibility will always prompt “one last cast” before reeling in for the day.

Exhausted and all worn out from their playing, the little lion cubs collapse into a heap of oversized paws, twitching, tufted ears and snowy whiskers.

Crepuscular sheaves of shrivelight pierce the canopy of the leadwoods, littering the island floor with spashings and dashings of sun, mottled and sprottled like the spots of a leopard. It’s approaching noon and on the sand below stands a lone umbrella, awning a table set for two, green camp chairs looking across the Zambezi to the hazy skein of the distant escarpment.

There’s a crackle of “kaingu” on the radio as Robert and Lawrence coordinate their party of nine, finding three leopard in a single sighting… Our guests this season have been spoilt rotten with astonishing sightings of cats in general, just yesterday hyena prowling through camp, limp baboon carcass clamped firmly in resolute jaws but today? Today the wild dogs were about, and that was truly special.

We watched as the acute angle of petrified tail slackened and after ten minutes a process much like disentangling a collapsed game of Twister began. Left paws went up, so right paws could move down, and the two squirmed back into their respective spots.

Whatever the day, whatever the year, Lion King premiere imminent or not, there is NO bad time to hear about the arrival of lion cubs. How amazing to report SIX baby lions!

We know they’ve passed through at some point and are certainly laid up in a bush to avoid the heat – the only question is where?! At last we’ve found our most useful tool of detection: lion spoor in the dust of the road, which requires a systematic examination of size, shape and sharpness of indentation.