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Just one of our many confrontations with a bull ele happened near Letaba in 2003. As the bull was coming down the hill on a gravel road I asked WTV to keep video taping it as it came down quite impressively and was a huge tusker too.

I started reversing the car to get out of the bull with the suspicious intentions in his myoptic eyes and behind me was an oke oblivious to the action unfolding in his near vicinity. So as I reversed right past him and the bull stormed of into the thick stuff taking a young tree with him I looked @ WTV and asked her how impressive video maetiral that was? Meanwhile the oke now infront of me was just popping his head back up from under the dashboard.

That night when I wanted to look @ the action which I had missed due to having my neck turned around like a pearl-spotted owlet's in my emergency reverse mode, I got a glimpse of dejavu. WTV decided stuff the bull and rather video tape to where I was reversing to. Oulik nê? Geez, women? Can't live with them, can't live without them. No women, no cry.

I've never had the opp to try this, but as anyone knows if you come across an interesting sighting it's only a matter of time before numerous other cars arrive and park up to look as well.
An experienced guide told me the way to combat this is to stick your head out of the car window holding a bird book in one hand and looking through binoculars held in the other. The average tourist will assume you are a birder and carry one. Birders will soon relaise you aren't looking at birds and will also cary on, leaving you alone with the sighting.

The same guide also told me an ideal (but impractical) question to ask on a game drive was who amongst the tourists was a entomologist, a botanist or an ornithologist. Then you kick those people off the truck and head off to look for animals without having to worry about bugs, plants or birds.

When my daughter was 8 months old we spent a week in the park. We stayed at Pretoriuskop in a rondawel. A little boy of about 2 just wandered into our rondawel and proceeded to grab my little girl's toe and bite it really hard. (Probably rabies.)
My husband very nochalantly grabbed his hand and bit his finger. He left the rondawel screaming. When his mother rushed to pick him up she just gave us a dirty look and walked off. No time for explanations. Strangely, in all this, very few words were spoken. Only screaming kids could be heard. I was too shocked to do a thing, firstly about what the little boy did out of the blue and secondly that my husband could almost bite a child's finger off! Whenever I remember this it is so vivid in my mind that I break up laughing all over again.

On my first trip to Kruger several of us were driving around in one of those VW combi vans, a great vehicle for touring. We were bing followed down the road by two bull elephants who were just plodding along behind us, so I'd paused to let the others get some photos. Two of the girls in the back started to get a bit anxious about the closeness of the elphants, and started urging me to move on, but I was watching them carefully in the outside mirror and was keeping my distance. The nearest elephant went out of my view in the mirror, so I turned to look out of the rear window and was shocked to see him looming enormously close behind us.
The mirror was one of those that carries the warning that objects seen in the mirror are closer than what they appear. Certainly was the case in this instance.

Since Elsa is telling you guys all our family "funnies" I will include this one which did not happen in Kruger but had us all laughing for years.

My mother has a theory, if there are three rhinos, then they are looking for trouble. I have to admit, and don't let her hear me say this, but she does have some pretty strong evidence to back up her theory. Anyways, we were travelling along in a large game park when we came across three white rhino standing on the side of the road. Well, we stopped and watched them for a while and all looked peaceful. My mother was getting twitchy as she knew we had to go passed them to get home in time. I had the video rolling and as mentioned by Elsa, I was getting evidence for the insurance company. Klystron was very confident the rhino were at peace with the world and would not harm us so he started driving slowly forward staying as far from them as the road would allow. The whole time we are moving forward Elsa is protesting, and Klystron is still confident the rhino were relaxed. As we got along side them, the one spun around and charged. I still had the camera rolling so when we watched the tape, we were very amused by the comments and shreks that came from the car. Needless to say, I did not stay focuses on the rhino so the insurance company would have had a good case against us if we needed to claim.

I once managed to convince my SO that we should rough it a bit and stay in a tent. I must say that she agreed very reluctantly being petrified of snakes. We booked a tent in Letaba and on arrival the tent had a massive hole in the one corner for the electric cable. I kept quiet and we went to bed that nite. We were later awoken by a mouse in our rusk box and it fled when I switched on the torch. For SO that was it! and we shared a single bed for the rest of the night after closing the hole with a 2 L Coke bottle. The next evening it came back and we lay laughing as it ran around the tent, scratching the canvas trying to get in.

There have been quite a few of these...especially since I tend to see the funny side of things quite often..people are generally quite funny.

One story that comes to mind is of a night drive from Olifants a number of years ago. We had taken our seats on the vehicle and were waiting for two more passengers to arrive.

One family was already on board with us...I noticed that the husband seemed a little affraid of his wife, he was meek and mild, she was quite the opposite. We were just about to leave when two young ladies came running from reception to get onto the drive, they were young American tourists who were visiting for the first time and because of inexperience did not realise how long it would take to reach the camp..(there was no forum then) They turned out to be very nice people.

As they came running, the thin lady, with very short hair and big glasses shuffled her large husband away from her, filled the space with blankets and said "Theres no more space." She clearly wanted the two to be turned away though they had booked their places. I was now very aware of the feisty personality on the seat behind me and was looking forward to some laughs. As we stopped to look at a Steenbok, the lady began to focus her camera, she did so for quite some time and then as the vehicle slowly began to pull away I heard a muffled, angry outburst from behind. The same thing happened at the next Steenbok sighting, this time she took a picture, then refocused and as she took the next one, the driver began to pull off again (he had given her ample time)! This time she clenched her fists and tried to conceal her silent tantrum...Her husband tried to reassure her and he got shoved away and became very nervous.

I began to imagine that the lady had an anger problem, because she kept having little fits of rage, shaking the blankets, slamming her fists into her lap and attacking her husband, all of this was done in a "quiet" way but everyone knew it was happening. The laughter was building up inside me like bubbles in a bottle of Champaigne. Everyone was pretending not to notice, and the pressurised situation made me want to laugh even more. Then, it happened again, just as she took a photo the vehicle jerked slightly.....All I heard was a suppressed mini tantrum going on behind me "ooohh that damn #&*^% f*&#!sht" coupled with clenched fists in front of her, kicking the floor and a now terrified husband!

That was it for me, as everyone pretended not to notice my whole body began shake with silent laughter, I was laughing hysterically but keeping silent which makes it so much harder to stop..and I was trying to hide it..to no avail. I actually dont think that these words do justice to the situation, you had to have been there to see and hear the outbursts, the muffled swearing...I got the impression that she was trying to take up photography as a form of relaxation, to calm herself down, well it was'nt working.

That night, after the drive, we saw that the two Americans were staying next door to us. They asked us for fire lighters to help strt their fire. It was our last night and gave them the rest of ours. Had we known that they had absolutely no idea of how to make a braai we would have done it for them. We went inside to start packing and when we came out we found them trying to braai their food in HUGE bonfire!! They used only wood and ALL the firelighters..the food was in the middle of the flames.... :We had to giggle but felt very sorry for them, they just needed some help.

Lol@all your funnies.

I had a couple this last trip.

On sunset drive from Croc Bridge we were joined by a group of Americans. The one boy about 12yrs old, saw a genet and shouted racoon! Later he saw a black-backed jackal and yelled Coyote! He did well in seeing them though, I thought.

We slept in 3 different locations in 3 nights. The second night the fun started. My uncle and I shared a chalet. Both him and my dad walked into the closet as they thought it was the door leading to the outside.

The closet also nearly became the loo as well. Shame poor old boyz... they had serious fun though!

Oh yes, I had to pour two perfectly full whiskeys away after my dad mistaken my Bells on the rocks as his Richelieu brandy which required coca cola. Whiskey and coke just does not blow my hair back.

Last year we saw mating lions in the road. The Male's roar was magnificent, and I was so excited to hear him so close. We moved on and the first vehicle we came across - so in my excitement I waved them down and told them very enthusiastically about the "paring lions" the moment I said that I realised it is mating lion. (in Afrikaans it is - leeus paar). Boy did I feel like an idiot, because I think these people were afrikaans like me and realised my mistake.

Just remembered this one: On my last trip... my uncle and I stopped one morning at the viewpoint near Biyamithi. Saw some rhino down below and watched as a bird of prey harassed the breeding pair of white-backed vultures across from us.

I stepped away from the vehicle to go enjoy my coffee and rusk in the sunlight. My uncle was doing something very suspicious next to the ever present open passenger door of the car.

I didn't take much notice of it then.

We watched as a bushbuck and her calf passed meters away from us thru the clearing...

I then heard the familiar call of an oxpecker and made the suggestion to get back into the car. The bird was sitting fairly close and the last thing I wanted to do before breakfast was to wash the passenger side of the car.

So we got in and drove back to camp.

My dad approached us to hear about our sightings. After informing him we went inside to get the breakfast ready. He went looking for something in his car. I heard my name being called... As obedient as I am I went to to face the firing squad that was awaiting me.

As I stepped outside I saw my dad with a helluva puzzled look on his face with a rock as big as half a rugby ball in his hands. He looked up at me and asked me what it was doing under the passenger seat.

I told him to ask his brother... Then it all started making sense to me.

The previous day I drove over a rock which got kicked up into the underside of the merc. He gave me a piece of his mind bout that. Then as my uncle and I were at the lookout that morning, he picked up the rock to defend himself in case of an attack from a leopard. (or maybe he was planning to outrun me...)

So as we got into the merc, he placed it under his seat for future defense opportunities. My dad, thought when he found the rock under the seat, that it was the previous day's that got shot right thru the floorboard into the car. He said that he couldn't believe that he couldn't see the gaping hole the rock should have left.

hello all
this past june my s/o and i spent 6 wonderful days in lower sabie and saw tons of stuff (big five in less than 5 hours one day) but there are two (among many) memories that stand out in my mind. one mid morning we were driving the h4-2 towards lower sabie when we saw several cars parked and looking out over the plain. we stopped and asked what was out there and some said that there was a lioness tracking a group of female kudu, so we stopped and started looking and sure enough there was the lioness tracking her kudu. so after much time spent tracking the lioness i took my binoculars and started looking around and i saw following behind the lioness a honey badger. needless to say my s/o who is nuts about badgers and i went crazy and started telling the person in the car next to us that there was a badger out there as well, the guy laughed and said "yes but do you see the lioness?", we said yes we saw the lioness but do you see the badger as well. needless to say he was not as impressed with our badger sighting as we were...lol.
the other story is where we had stopped and watched two male kudus fighting on the h4-1 what was funny was standing next to the road were two female impalas watching these two brutes go at it. the girls had their two heads together and were watching these two big boys go at it and it looked as if they were skindering like two school girls watching the boys fight it out on the play ground.
for us it is not the big things that make kruger for what it is it is often the small things that make kruger for us. the big are great though as well...anyone else got similar stories?

During a bushbraaidrive the guide asked me if my son was my grandson
I then told him that in Holland we usually start making a family after our 30ties and i am his dad
Took him a few minutes and after that he always gave me the eye

When you camp there is almost always something or someone to laugh about! But by far the funniest incident experienced in Kruger was about three years ago while camping in Berg en Dal.
We had a lovely spot next to the fence. When our neighbours arrived - two families in two caravans - we knew that it was not going to be a quiet weekend!
One night, after an especially noisy braai, only the two men were left sitting outside. The one was telling the other about the hayenas patrolling the fence. Every now and then they walked to the fence and shined their torch - if you could call it that- into the veld.
A wooden bench stood next to the fence and before long the guy with the torch got onto this bench trying to shine his little light over the top of the fence.
Obviously his balance was not too good - he was swaying back and forth trying to keep it. On one of his forward "sways" he thouched the fence. Ever wondered if the electric fences in Kruger work? It does - this guy experienced it first-hand! The one moment he was standing on the bench and the next he was lying in the dust! When he eventually got to his senses again, the only thing that he could say was: "@#%$, that thing shocked me!!!!"
Needless to say we nearly fell off our chairs laughing.

Just remembered this one...

We were snorkeling in tsitsikama a good few years ago. Couple of mates...

We had a breakdown, as usual when we go on a trip with the landy. So as 3 of the 5 okes were fixing the landy with bloudraad and bostik, bostokkelos and I went for a goof and a snorkle.

Now... BT was already nervous of entering according to him "shark invested waters".

We saw some beauties(no bert, fish! But there were a few beach babes @ Plett the previous day Sjoe!). At one point he drifted off from me as the fascination of the under water new world intrigued his brainless skull... I saw a beaut of a fish and wanted to show it to BT. Everytime I got closer to him he ventured further... unknowingly that I was trying to catch his attention... Suddenly I got close enough and grabbed him by the ankle just as he was about to move of again...

What happened next is difficult to explain in words, but I will try...

He made himself into a little defensive ball and swung around faster then an outboard motor that broke off after rusting through on 20 knotts on the open water... Pulling his right arm back to deal what he though was a shark taking a snap @ his leg a vicious blow to the snout.

The expression of fear and shock in his eyes behind the mask was... how do they say? Priceless!!! As I burst out in laughter water entered thru my mask, snorkel and everywhere else there was an opening. I nearly drowned that day from laughing.

Yeah, I know... why 3 okes fixing the landy? Only one was neccessary to do it, but one had a hangover from hell and enjoyed the shade of the car and the other one had some tjokka put in his diving mask the previous morning as part of a practical joke.

Till this day, you can't get that smell out... no matter what.

First the background. Drove all day from Shingwedzi to Balule. Hot. Arrived at Balule late in day and booked into one of the huts for few nights. Upon arrival, my neighbours were already having sundowners in the shade. Recognising my dirty and tired look, I was immediately invited for a cold one. This welcoming party ended 22:00 with nothing unpacked from the car. I quickly grabbed only the bare necessities from the car, had a nice shower and aimed for bed. By this time the entire camp was in Lalla land. Unfortunately the law of “liquids in, liquids out” demanded a last trip to the ablutions. Armed with my trusty mini Maglite torch I obliged. Balule is very dark at night. Now the story gets a bit more graphic.

En route to ablutions, I could clearly here a disturbing noise. Is it inside or outside the fence? Just had to investigate. I slowly worked my way to the fence and discovered 4 hyenas about 10 metres on the outside. They were very “playful” and I suspected a spectacular sighting. All alone, I decided to stay for the show. At this point I just have to quickly explain the construction of the Balule perimeter fence. It is low with 3 simple electrified wires running on top. These are about head height if memory serves me correct. Completely absorbed in the show, I eventually pointed my Maglite between these electrified wires (or so I assume). Did you know that a Maglite has a metal casing? And that it is a perfect conductor of electricity? Did you know that the electrified fence is operational at night? Yip, the inevitable happened. My next awareness was my personal location which was about 3 metres from the fence (fortunately still on the inside). How the heck did I get there? Then a loud bang as if something had touch the live wires (anyway, that’s the sequence I remember). The next thing any reasonable person would do is to have a look around – who saw me? What a relieve I am still alone. That sorted out, I noticed a strange phenomenon. Dancing light in the trees? Huh? I eventually made the connection between the dancing light, the Maglite and the torch operator (read my right hand). It was shaking uncontrollably, fuelled by sensations such as needles and pins and numbness. Utterly disgusted at my ignorance, I went straight to bed. Until today I cannot offer any scientific explanation for what happened to the liquids. It disappeared in a mystery.

The liquids were back very early next morning. The moment before action I realised that my right hand was still shaking. What if it actually got electrified during last night’s ordeal? No way I am taking the chance (note to men – I know what you are thinking. Don’t even think about going there). It became my first of many left handed tasks for the day. Never knew my left hand was so poorly trained. Glad to say the right hand recovered fully with no lasting damage. And more importantly the Maglite is still working.

All visitors to KNP must please note that these fences work and they bite. Try it yourself if you do not believe me. Should any resident KNP baboon or monkey read this post (since the Park now has internet access), please advise your colleagues not to jump the fence. It is not worth it. Rather stay on the outside where stupid people will feed you from the inside anyway. Shocking, isn’t it?