The king is resting

Isn't he a picture of contentment - it looks like butter would not melt in his mouth? The only reason I was this close was because he was on the other side of the fence, at the Seaview Lion Park.

The only lion I have ever seen in the wild was at the Hwange National Park in Zimbabwe. It was a big male, crouching in the scrub at the side of the road, looking like he would like to make us his next meal.

During my days in the army, during the bush war in Zimbabwe, I spent a lot of time in the Zambezi Valley. It is a vast wilderness, teaming with wildlife of every kind and is still one of my favourite places on the planet. Although we never saw the lions we often heard them at night.

It was a very sobering experience, knowing that they were out there, but not knowing what their intentions were. We also knew of a guy who had recently been taken by a lion, while sitting around a camp fire at night, it simply leapt into the circle, grabbed him and disappeared into the darkness, before anyone could react.

We we young and without a sense of our own mortality and took solace in the fact that if it happened in our camp, it would be one of the other guys. Fortunately the lions left us alone.