Business at Leopard’s Den isn’t flourishing. Sarah decides that new luxury accommodation which will attract wealthy guests is the answer to their financial problems.
On completing his annual animal census, Danny makes the alarming discovery that there are no male cheetah on the reserve. Meanwhile tension between Sarah and Caroline is at an all time high and in a fit of pique, Sarah fires her own mother.
This week Danny has an elephant problem: there’s not enough space for their growing numbers at Leopard’s Den. The elephants have eaten all the available foliage and are beginning to fight over food, and injure each other. If Danny can’t solve this problem, Du Plessis tells him, the only humane thing to do will be to cull some of the elephants.
Danny is shocked when Elaine, his old flame from veterinary college, turns up with a tranquilised lioness which she claims to have found in the bush. Sarah is unhappy when she sees the way Danny reacts to seeing Elaine again.
Danny berates a tourist for carelessly hitting a cow while driving through the township. He’s stunned to learn that the woman is Kriel’s wife, Amy (Jessie Wallace).
Danny is busier than ever due to a drought affecting the region. But he has to turn away some locals with sick animals to attend to an abandoned baby hippo. Frustrated by his relentless workload, Sarah decides to restart the animal hospital initiative. Without Kriel’s knowledge, Amy helps Sarah organise a fundraiser. They hope to persuade Jordan, a rich businessman staying at Mara, to invest in the hospital.
Max's parents are from old South Africa and don't approve of the wedding and the omens are bad when Max sees the bride before the wedding. The drought continues and a fire threatens the marriage, the hospital and the house. Max is the hero and Kriel the coward while Max's father proves that a leopard can change it's spots.
The hospital is lost in the fire, but the animals are now in danger of being trapped in the flames, so the Trevanions rush to help them. Disaster strikes and the family has to decide what it can do in the face of such tragedy. Africa has been their saviour and now could be their undoing.