Walking with lions in Antelope Park

Antelope Park, about 10 minutes outside of Gweru in Zim, is a lion park that breeds its own lions and then teaches them survival instincts that are not innate and that they will need to survive in the wild as only a small percentage of wild cubs make it to adult status. There are only around 20,000 African lions left in the world, which while they are not in any immediate danger of becoming extinct, is enough to place them on the vulnerable list. Antelope Park was a fantastic campsite, with a small lake in the middle for canoeing , gorgeous room to upgrade in (we didn't), great buffet meals and beautiful grounds to relax in the sun. The boys broke out the backyard cricket and all of the girls got into our bikinis and did our toes in the sun. We were able to choose a number of activities in the park and so were scheduled to "walk with the lions" at 6am the next morning, followed by playing with the baby cub and watching the lion feeding - conveniently scheduled right AFTER we were to walk with them, so prior to walking we were advised of their famished state. We headed out at 6am the next morning in the freezing cold (temperatures fell to -2 degrees at the Park in the three nights we were there) for our walk with the lions. We were to walk with three cubs in the A group (named Apollo, Archilles and Athena) who were about 18 months and around 130kg each. We were dropped into the middle of the Antelope Park game park and in the distance could see the three cubs coming in our direction. We were both terrified and blown away when they came right up to us and started nuzzling our legs and feet. Grant had out his handicam and was filming the cubs running around the group when one of the male cubs (Archilles), with all of his 130kg, jumped on Grant's back putting his paws on Grant's shoulder and giving him a little nuzzle in the neck. In a moment of confusion (and to be fair, I do like the odd piggyback and a little bit of nuzzling too...), Grant wasn't at all concerned as he thought that it was me on his back, until he realised that perhaps I didn't quite weigh 130kg (the food hasn't been THAT good!), and turned around to see this reasonably well sized lion cub. For Grant, it was, without a doubt, one of the most amazing experiences he has had, but, just quietly, probably also one of the scariest. Even though it is not at all dangerous to walk and play with the lions, it takes a good 15-20 minutes to get comfortable and it is hard to do that even though you know that they smell your fear and will pick on you if you are scared. We spent around an hour and a half with the lions and managed to get scratched and cuddled by them all before heading back to a huge buffet breakfast! We spent the rest of the morning playing with a 5 month old cub who couldn't quite growl although he tried his best and also looking at four 5-week old little fur ball cubs that were in hiding (we had to offer bribe money to get there....) at the managers house. We had such a neat walk in the morning that we did another cubwalk in the afternoon with three 1year old cubs - again, an incredible experience. What a place to visit. We would recommend it to anyone as the experience of walking and playing with lions was well up there with seeing the mountain gorillas!