Trespassers will be eaten

As difficult and fearsome as Morne Morkel and Kagiso Rabada may have been, and as violent the proverbial mauling may have been during South Africa's 333-run win in the first Test, just a chain-link fence and some electrical wires separated a group of touring journalists from the real thing about 35 kilometres outside Potchefstroom.

If you thought that the sticker with the words 'Trespassers will be eaten' on the front door of the small building at a corner of the 1,050-acre compound that makes up the Kohra Lion Park was a joke, a sight of its main occupants will tell you that it is only half in jest.

23 lions and a cub populate those wide acres. A 12-foot high fence that bulges and creaks when these massive kings of the jungle stand up on hind legs and lean on them are what stop visitors from becoming dinner.

The owner of the private land, Jaco, guided the group of nervous journalists as he fed the lions and lionesses whole chickens, skinned. The majestic creatures rushed to the fence – a sight that if you have not seen in the flesh, you will not know the primal terror it engenders, fence be damned – when they catch sight of Jaco with his huge bucket. Each lion eats seven to 10 kilograms of chicken a day. On Saturdays the lions have a special feast. Last Saturday they were fed 500 kgs of beef, after which they did not eat for two days till the morning we visited. That information did not help us breathe any easier.

There was not the feeling of safety you get in zoos, where animals have become accustomed to thousands of visitors each day. Jaco warned us not to turn our backs on the creatures, even though they were on the other side of the fence. When one of us forgot that instruction, a lion appropriately named Goliath leapt up onto the fence. He did not let us know if his stomach turned at that point, but that is a fair assumption.

Once back inside the building, we played with a cub called Koning, Afrikaans for king, the two-month old cub of Goliath. I thought Koning took a special liking to me, until it started biting. Let us not mince words here – you are reading the words of one who was bitten by a lion and lived to tell the tale.

Among us was a journalist who confessed to a fear of dogs and was nervous when the canines barked and leapt up on the gates of houses the previous night. After the visit to Kohra's lions, he was seen walking around with Jaco's dogs with nary a concern; dogs are after all man's best friend, especially after you were made to feel like a chicken.