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We had a experience a few years back, nothing as frightening as going through deep water (just as well, we go in the normal car). We were travelling down from Skukuza on the H4-1 to Lower Sabie on our way out the Crocodile Bridge (we stay outside the park at timeshare). We stopped at Nkuhlu Picnic Site for a stop and found a ranger needing a lift back to Lower Sabie. Since we had space we offered him a spot and off we went again enjoying the tales the ranger was telling us. He told us a leopard was around so we were driving really slowly in the hope of seeing him. We came across some buffalo on the road so we stopped to have a look. Suddenly a very large bull ellie walked onto the road behind us. We were now in a bit of a sandwich and we all had to admit we were very pleased to have the ranger with us. Over the next few minutes well over a thousand buffalo's came onto the road totally blocking our path. The ellie also seems pretty pleased behind us so we all sat nervously waiting for a clearing. We slowly managed to move forward over the next hour or so making sure we did not annoy any buffalo.

Needless to say, we did survive but we did even get close to making it out of the park. We stopped at Lower Sabie and had to stay the night which pleased me as the more time I spend in Kruger, the happier I am. We had a great time in the park and the next day we found a cheetah which we would never have seen if we got out the park that night. I always remember my Mom being very worried because my sister in law would not be able to take her birth control pills. A few days later at my parents anniversary dinner we had over looking the Crocodile River, my brother and sister in law announced they were pregnant. That was my parents first grandchild so that was one trip we will all never forget.

I recall having read about an elephant handler that was also killed, about a week or so ago, at an elephant safari outfit near Knysna.
I surely hope that these kind of elephant back safaris will never be introduced to our parks like Addo or Kruger although they seem to be popular attractions for the tourists' sake in places like Victoria Falls. I am against all use of wild animals outside of the wild for the pleasure of mankind such as in the circus or a zoo.

PS - WTM my braais are never going to be the same again as I will always think of the lunchboxes on the chopped up store rooms. ROFL

Another one? Or are you perhaps referring to this incident? (Also discussed on page 1 of this thread)
I read a follow up article mentioning details of the June accident too, just a few days ago, but I haven't been able to find it again.

Jose I am almost certain that this is another incident but will check with the local newspaper.
I have checked but everything refers to that incident. It just shows you how time flies by.

I can tell you know that a Ranger in KZN was killed by an elephant very recently ...

Also almost caught an animal attack when a lady tried her luck with a not too friendly ellie .. it was inches or that car was history ...

I had a very hair raising experience this trip. Left Shingwedzi camp 5h30 .. bit overcast which made things darker ... now for those of you who have not seen the road running along the river, it's thick. Anything can surprise you on that road. So there I was, lights on brights, driving 15km/h when something on my right caught my attention.

The moment I stopped I realised that it's not an ellie I was looking at, but a full size grown hippo, And there I was parked smack bang between him/her (did not really take the time to look) and the river. When both of us finally came over the 1st shock and to our sense, I just poot foot (as we would say in afrikaans, "Voet in die Hoek") ... Unfortunately the Hippo had the same idea and started running .... right next to the car ... when I looked to see where it was it was running next to me. And then I just nearly **** myself!!!! Foot off the accellerator and hard on the breaks, on the clutch in reverse and floor it backwards...

By this time the hippo also nearly **** himself and turned to run into the bush instead of the water. When I saw that I stopped, took a smoke and 3 drags later I finished it ...

All I can say is that a Hand from above really saved the skin of my butt that day. I was sure that hippo was going to turn for the water and that could have been a different story all together.

A lion kill 20 feet from the car. Look at the link below for the post (1st one) and turn up the volume

Link

I nearly became a late night snack for an old lioness in LS one day.

we await with baited breath .

Ok ok, hold on to your ...........

I have told the story here somewhere before but lemme tell it again...

It all started like this....

it was in 2000 just before the record exams for matrics. I schemed myself into a trip with my late brother and his 2 friends and one of them's girlfriend on number 99. I have always been one that made decisions on the spur of the moment and little did I know that this one nearly cost my family & friends another trip to Kruger to go scatter my ashes in it...

We had a super trip in the 3 days we were there. Saw the big 5 and wild dogs. We ended up in Lower Sabie. As things go with trips which includes 2nd year Pretoria Tuks students we were never short of fun and action. I remember seeing my brother stamped with the Croc bridge gate stamp till he was as blue as a smurf. The intern at the gate (a real looker of note) had her hands full with the 3 students without the accompanied girlfriend. One thing Tuks boykies can do very well is to charm the taco powder of a lass.

Anyhow we eventually got out of Croc Bridge and drove back to LS. I was the designated driver which meant that I was the only capable one around and I was to have my share of drinkable substance later that night around one of my now famous camp fires.

As it goes, the students retired to their sleeping places early after their day's high packed action filled experience. 3
went into the tent and the last one, now famous Free state Cheetah lock Corniel van Zyl, and playing a helluva game, went into the venture. Till today non of us can remember how he packed himself into it being 2meters tall.

I was the last man standing as usual. My firewood stock starting to deplete... Then I remembered the kitchen at the back of the old restaurant for those who can remember the old LS camp. I pulled myself together, took a swash @ the "Oom Tas"(best SA red wine one can find and the only one we could affort), camouflaged my kisser with some ashes, put on my beanie and jogged to my rendevouz point from where I would start to leopard crawl to the unfortunate hostage which I was about to free namely 3 huge rooibos stumps.

Now many might say that I stole the goods. I would rather think of it as utilise untilised natural resources and put it out
of its suffering misery of being half burnt to death in any case. Kruger tends to give many, including me, specifically, a
mischievious side. Afterall its not my fault the shops are closed @ 22:00 @ night.

So after grabbing hold of the goods I ran back to my base camp. Needless to say that with the current state I was in(which is the only way I could get as brave as I were) I took a stump on the smouldering end and howled like a constipated hyaena stuck in a drainpipe under the S100. On my way back swearing myself for being so dumb, which I do quite often anyhow, I tripped over a tap after mistaking a nearby gwarrie bush for a saber-toothed warthog with my name on its business end. It looked like a comet had hit the earth. Billions of smouldering ashes enlighting the sky and a thump as dull as half brick being dumped into blocked up longdrop when my carcass hit the the ground. I fell so hard that my fillings in my teeth rang like a old
postoffice tikkiebox. After hearing calls of excited all timers that Halleys comet had just hit this side of the country I scooped up my catch and set off like a "brandsiek muishond" with a turbo-charged V8 tied on its back... not as fast but as loud as I picked the smouldering end of a log up with my other hand...

Ok, to cut a long story short... I ended up inviting a matric(thus knowing the time of events) nelspruit oke who came camping with his girlfriend over to come and finish the bottle of "Tas" with me. Not soon after, his betterhalf appeared to find out what the heck had happened to him as they were to go thru some biology notes(yeah right!). That was just the motivation the 3 male students needed to come and investigate the source of the fairer voice. So next thing I sat there with a Loftus sized croud and drinking "Tas" thru a straw as my hands where wrapped up with a sock filled with ice and a 3 day old hanky dupped in ice cold water. As luck wanted it the 4th student, the girlfriend, took unkind to this new lass protruding her domain and soon after the whole party was pooped.

I don't know and wouldn't remember anyhow what time I fell asleep next to the fire but I know I did not lay my head down on a pillow. When the car hooter went off I flew up and it felt like my neck broke off just below my head as I tried to raise it.
Whether from the hangover or whether from laying my head down on a rock that pretty much resembled an southern angolian snow chicken I cannot say. It sounded like a foghorn went off in my head. Someone shouted lion!! "Get into your cars... Lion!!!!". That didnt take me long to snap, hangover and all and I piled into the 2m lock forward filled toyota venture. All hell broke loose, children cried, women screamed and men... well they did what men would do and stood and watched the whole affair. I remember this black dude on a "dikwiel" bicycle come tearing past me and ran towards where people were
running away from. He was our hero!! Our Chuck Norris.

A lioness was trapped in the corner of the camp and was busy ramming "boeppense" (beerboeps) into the perimeter fence. Her face was covered in blood as the poor old lady tried to get out of this human infested craphole. The camp manager asked us to help block her off from running back into the camp with our venture which was regarded as perfect taking its size into
account. So we ended off having front row seats of the outcome of this once in a lifetime experience. My brother video taping the whole story. A vet rushed from Skukuza and took place next to us to dart the old gal. Boy!! Did she gave a bloodstolling growl when that dart entered her, she went as balistic as... well, a darted, agitated, starving lioness trapped in a corner,
I guess!

She walked a couple of circles snarling and growling at us and then the drugs started to take effect, she stumbled left and
right like I did the previous night and then her back legs gave way and she collapsed onto her side. The vet went out to
investigate and so did the rest of the camp. We helped loading her onto the vet's bakkie. It took 4 men to accomplish that.
The vet explained that she was very old, starving and probably TB ridden and that they would do tests on her in Skukuza and if she was sick that they would put her out otherwise release her back into her territory. We never heard the outcome but I think we were on of the last to have seen her alive.

Well a couple of cold castles later @ 8 am ended the adrenalin rush and as we learned from the camp manager that the lioness came in thru the staff gate leading into the camp the night before I froze in my steps as I realised that it was about the time I went out on my S.W.A.T. stab mission. True as bob she tossed over almost all the dustbins in the camp looking for
scraps. Her spoor all over the kitchen area. I never went to look at where I had slept, but my brother told me that he reckoned that it was not my time as by judging by the signs she probably sniffed at my head and the stinch of "Oom Tas" red wine and the accompaning snore made her realise that the heartburn as a result of her soon to be meal would not cut the
mustard.

I still sleep outside many times... but I always have this incident in the back of my head.

hehehe nearly forgot this last part... as the vet drove off my brother was standing with the video cam on the back of the bakkie accompanied by the drugged lioness. We forgot bout him and so did the vet. Only realised it as they exited the gate and my bru screamed at the top of his lungs, banging on the roof to get him the hell off that lioness!!

"Stooooop!! Ek's nog op die bakkkiiiiieeee!!!"

Have you ever been chased by an Elephant or an Buffalo or even an Impala? Well I have!!

The story that no one believes is the one where the Impala chased me

We were on our way to Kruger gate when we saw a baby warthog and an Impala, so we stopped cause warthog looks so sweet, when suddenly the Impala turned towards us and started chasing us. At first I thought maby he's just running away but he came straight towards our bakkie, so I started driving and the Impala still chased for about 30 metres down the road! Maby the Impala was feeling responsible for the little warthog and tried to protect him from threats?

Then there was the elephant who chased us and another car back over 400m, he was pretty aggresive!
And an Buffalo started chasing us as we drove past him, he was the only one {luckily!}! I assume he was an old one and got kicked out of his herd.


Tell me about your close calls

Hey guys,

I believe that an elephant attacked a visitor's car on the 10th of October 2006 outside Letaba.

Does anyone have a copy of this picture, I amn interested to see the damage?.

Mikenick

Are you an insurance agent?