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The discussion on keeping meat fresh under "Advice" reminds me of an experience on my first ever "major" trip to Kruger as a first-year student - an 8-night extravaganza to the North!

We overnighted on the way at one of our party's parents near Potgietersrus, as our first 3 nights were in Punda.

There I was introduced to "Guineafowl-a-la-king", absolutely delicious, by the way, and the "tannie" gave us a huge tupperware full of marinated beef kebab pieces for the trip! (Or was it mutton... )

We dined royally on these "sosaties'" for two nights, keeping them in a cooler with ice, but even though it was winter the meat was warm by the time we returned from a memorable and very well lubricated third evening drive...

We did not even wonder about what to do, and enjoyed the last of the cubes.

Some time in the early hours, as we were sleeping in the 4-man tent, it became appallingly apparent that nerve gas was being released in great profusion by all of us, with a very demoralising effect in such a confined space!

After a great amount of bitching and the inevitable accusations, counter-allegations, and outraged declarations of innocence, we ended up sleeping with our heads projecting outside the door of the tent, after zipping it down around our necks!

It was freezing cold...

I have just been reading PJW experiences on the Chit chat about teaching children to drive.

12 years ago we were taking son to tukkies to start varsity for the first time.
We decided on the scenic route via KNP to Pretoria.
We were driving slowly along the tarred road with son at the wheel.
We then spotted the shape of a traffic car hiding in the Mopani bushes with traffic officer sitting is chair doing what traffic officers do. We coninued and son said ..He is following us with the blue light flashing.
We pulled over and traffic officer approached us licking his pencil and opening up his fine book with that look only traffic officers have when they think they have GOTCHA.
Sonny climb out the car and produce your licence.. Well son looked very young for his 18 years not yet having to use a razor but he is very very tall but he has very long arms and legs so looked like a 12 year old driving.
Well he unravelled himself from the drivers seat and stood at least 60cms above the officer. The poor man muttered something about" Have a good day" and head down with such dissapointment showing in his shoulders got into his car

A little while after this I noticed in the News Paper that there was a vacancy for a traffic officer in the KNP... I wonder!!!!?

Reading the posts about tourists makes me shake my head in wonder and agreement . My SO and I are both lifelong nature lovers and birders. We live in Washington state in the pacific northwest of America. I grew up spending a great part of my life in the forests of the northwest and am a keen animal and bird spotter.
On our first visit to South Africa we spent ten days in Kwazulu Natal. The other American tourists that were in our safari group embarrased and annoyed us. After the first day, four of the other eight people in our group were tired of looking at animals. I thought that our ranger was going to strangle them!
On our second day, my SO and I were already planning our return to South Africa. We can't get enough, and this September we get two weeks. Maybe next time will be three!
I apologize for all of the ignorant Americans that you have the misfortune of meeting, we all aren't that way.

We had an hilarious experience in Feb this year just outside Lower Sabie 05.30 am. We noticed a very large hippo grazing on the side of the road so slowed down just to watch and take some pics. He was totally undaunted by our flashes going off around him. Probably 10 mins into watching him i think he decided it was pay back time for disturbing him with bright light. He proceded to do the biggest messiest poop we have ever got ourselves into...literally...., For those who dont know hippos, they flick their tales rapidly from side to side when defacating. The mess..... well it was on the car, in the car, on our arms and cameras, and it was days later that we were still finding little clumps of dried poop in the car. Our good luck charm some poop on the door and roof remained for the duration of our stay and it sure worked. We had a wonderfull time with fab sightings.



The offending hippo



Note poop 5 days later still on the door



Sally my friend still finding dry poo in the car days later.

That day i learnt the folklore tale as to why hippos remain in the water.

Give us ur funny tales

Elephants do tend to hate our old Series III diesel land rover. I've heard some different theories about this, including noise, smoke, and a hypothesis that elephants associate old landies with the days of culling.

One day we slowed to watch an old bull elephant near shingwedzi. We parked a respectful distance away from him and, amazingly, he didn;t seem too bothered by our land rover.

He was slurping up mud and water from a puddle and squirting it over his back.

Then, he must have taken a second look and worked out that we were, in fact, in an old land rover. He sucked up another great gob of mud, aimed at us and, I swear, fired it 30 metres at us, and hit the side of our vehicle with a great splat of mud and snot!

(Or maybe it was aussies he didn't like)

A question about "rangers' guests" further up reminded me of a funny story...

We were guests at an unspecified small camp, camping in a tiny tent during a bitterly cold winter!

After the first night, despite extensive "lubrication", not a wink was slept...I swear my bald spot froze onto the tent wall, somehow!

Our kind host offered to let us sleep in the laundry/bedding room for the last night, and what an experience!

I don't suppose many forumites have had such a priveledge, or will, but if you could ever sneak into one for a night's rest, do yourself a favour!

Imagine lying down surrounded by mounds and racks full of pillows, sheets and blankets/duvets... the psychological effect has to be experienced to be believed...

It was virtually impossible to awake the next morning, but we had to...sort of like leaving a fairy-tale world...

Maybe an idea for some luxury camp...

Whilst touring the Park in Sept 2006 with friends (PaulE and family), we decided to have lunch at Olifants. As we are avid campers, we wanted to pop in and have a look at Balule on our way up. When we got to the gate, not a living soul was in sight so I jumped out and opened and closed the gate to let our 2 vehicles through. We had a good look at the facilities and after a walk around the camp, we headed towards the gate.... PaulE's SO and I have a habit of pulling each other's leg (with 2 sets of twins and 2 singletons, we need a sense of humour!!) PaulE's SO got out to open the gate and he drove ahead.... my SO pulled in line with the gate and I rummaged in my purse for a coin... as I held my hand out to put the coin in PaulE's SO's hand as payment ...(new job - Kruger gate guard), a movement caught my eye to the left of the gate. We were both laughing so hard at the situation that I was trying to point out the "movement" and tell her to close the gate and run. She said later that she was so used to us poking fun at each other that she had been expecting someone to shout snake or lion or something similar...!! I have included the pic of the very sleepy inhabitant under the tree at the entrance to Balule..... So folks, if you go down to the woods today.....you're in for a big surprise..!

Whenever we go to wild places, the teasing, which is rife in our family, is suspended for commands.

Stand Still!
Run!
Close the door, etc are phrases to be obeyed without question or argument.

years back driving slowly ,looking at elephant spoor on a lonely dirtroad..telling my wife he is close,spoor fresh...leaned out of open bakkie door whilst idling forward to look at spoor next to me(i know not allowed), then had wife shout "elephant !"...nearly drove into the said elephant bull !

Had a lady on a few trips who was proud of being an ecology professor..... but then spoilt everything by asking about bears in Kruger! (And a few other strange things too - but that was the classic!) Oh - and she let slip that they had had trouble identifying an animal the day before........turned out to be an impala!

This has nothing to do with the PArk but it conserns nature freaking out on humans too.

We were in Lydenburg, decided to go fishing in a dam near by cant recall the name but its on the way to dullstroom. The weather was cloudy yet sunny every now and then. Three hours past and we had cought nothing, rods kept snapping and the hooks were coming back with shrubs so we decided to play music and drink our sorrows to the drizzle that strongly becoming a storm.
After sunset the weather became worst, it started raining and when we attempted to leave the car didnt want to start. We called someone to come pull us but by the time they came the water from the dam was splashing the back wheels, we did all the attachments and when i attempted to drive the car pulling the one stuck the ignition switched off.
No jumper cables and it was becoming dark fast. I think the lightning and the moist from the surrounding was affecting the car starters or battery power because the truck pulling us refused to start too.

Eventually we called a company that deals with such, they had to pull a Honda CR-v and a Nissan truck off the dam with water dam near swallowing both cars, by then it was 22:00 pm after pushing and sliding OFF MUD trying to survive.

I STILL GO FISHING THO

Many years ago, we wanted to go into Kruger as a day visitor (no booking), we decided to stay at the Numbi hotel and get an early start - so we started grilling the receptionist, what time is breakfast, she told us 7am, could we have breakfast earlier, so we could be first at the gate the next morning, so we could be sure we would get into the park..
She asked us very innocently where are you staying? Here, we answered, no she said we are FULL!!

We forgot to ask the most important question - have you a room at check-in we were doing the whole dance again about an early start and some English tourist said they had a day booking that they were not using and gave it to us!!!
Gee fate made the Numbi hotel full hey

Evening folks, have just finished reading a few of the entries here and had a good laugh.
Well, one of my funniest personal experiences happened a good 26 years ago in Tanzania while guiding a group of Italian tourist in the Serengeti National Park.

In those years Tanzania was in deep deep trouble and the whole tourism sector went bust, and so did service, roads, lodges and hotels in the country.
Knowing the situation one of my main worries was food for my clients during the whole safari, we actually had most of it loaded on a land rover that travelled ahead of us and got things going before we got the various lodges. Serengeti was our last stop and everything had gone as programmed so wasn't too careful when it got to dinner. Head waiter confirmed that our veggies had arrived and were ready and that we also had game meat and cake. Great! got everyone sitting and dinner started and all seemed perfect. At one stage I noticed a few of my clients grumbling and a couple actually get up and leave the dinning room.
My worries became panic when the grumbling became generalised and one of ladies came up to me and asked if it was all a joke or what. I was totally unprepared to all this and asked what was the problem and the lady simply gave me a copy of the menu, which each client had in front of them, and told me to read it.
On reading and getting to the game meat part I turned white and realised what the problem was. Our game meat was Hartebeest steak which is generally called "TOPI" in East Africa.
In Italian "TOPI" simply means "RAT" and believe me it took a lot of convincing to get all of them to swallow that meal, and I'm fully convinced they did very very reluctantly.
This experience taught me a lesson: always know what you are putting in your mouth, wherever you are!

This gives new meaning to the word protruding. This sighting was close to Nkhulu. I had to laugh.

Just a fun topic & to be deleted tonight for sure

We went for a drive this morning, Sable, Masorini loop, & then, Lion tracks Got to the windmill, the Sable pride was there, walking towards the picninc site.

Off we go, get to picnic site, bacon is there, beer is there, eggs the whole thing. Now we know the lions are only about 500m away. First SO & the kids, to the loo & back.

Then I go to the loo(all that knows Masorini, the furthest one) but I parked next to the loo's. As I get out the door, still zipping up I look up. Two males, one as big as a horse I am sure, second one, a bit larger & five females.

20 meters away the Sable pride, walking towards me, I needed the loo again.

Anybody else have such a thing happen.