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It is pleasing to hear that "a plan can be made" !

Great topic....
It really is great to hear about people helping each other out...

What I really enjoy about the park is when you are travelling along, and people stop next to you, ask how you are doing, and what you have seen up the road etc... Doesn't happen as often as it used to, but it is great when you "exchange" with other visitors....

In the 80's we had a radiator water pipe burst, which was sort of fixed at Satara AA. The next morning we set off for Skukuza to get it properly fixed, but there was still a leak that squirted water into the distributor! Needless to say we had to ask passing motorists to send a message from Satara AA to Skuk AA. (no cell phones in those days!) Eventually the tow truck arrived, and as it was an automatic car it had to go on a trailer. We sat in the car on the trailer and were driven down to Skuk in style! Also a much better view form up there! The driver was very happy to stop for anything we wanted, and even drove the detour to Leeupan!

I know it was his job, but I think he enjoyed the trip as much as we did. Much better than being stuck under a car in Skukuza anyway!

Obviously the cars of the 80's and overheating went hand in hand.

Also somewhere in the 80's - I must've been about 12 or 13 ... we drove this ugly blue Mercedes - no not the hi-tech ones of these days - that was an old shabby liitle job... anyway as it turns out we burst a waterpipe between Skukuza and Pretoriuskop. The problem was that doesn't matter how much water you put in - a couple of km's further it's all leaked out again. So we emptied all our drinking water, all the ice from the cooler box - my dad had one of those old water bottles you hang in front of the car in a hesian type bag - you guys still remember those?... well we emptied that as well. So we limp towards Pretoriuskop - going 50pkh on the uphills and freeing the car on the flats and downhills (switched off).

Anyway, seems that we're just not going to make the camp with our "reserves" of water and we're going to be late at the gate to boot. Next thing a speedcop jumps out in front of us just to REALLY make my dads day. He immediately realised that we had car problems, judging by the streams of H2O running out from behind the front wheel. He gladly emptied all his drinking water plus his ice from his cooler box into our car and even radioed camp to be on the lookout for us as we might not make it.

I was only 12 years old - but that act of kindness sticks with me till this day.

PS: We just made the camp - albeit about 30mins late. Luckily we didn't get any fine and the speedy checked up on us that night to see if we made it ok.

Snap Nungu !

Our car also happened to be a dark blue Merc

BG

So bushguy you got lots of help from a samaritan too???

Such wonderful stories shared here, I'm quiet sure there's many more to share by the 'mites that we don't know of.

As Spookie says, what wonderful stories here.

I am also sure that there must be more great stories - on the similar lines - for mites to share here.

Nungu, not old enough to remember the hesian water bottles however, I think they should bring them back - was a superbly simple, but effective, way of keeping water cool. I do remember, though, that in those days the people were more apt to assist. City people have, in many ways, become a little selfish; although the country folk still stop at any opportunity to see how one's doing!

We had a really good Samaritan who completely saved our trip to KNP last July before we even made it into the park. On arrival at J'burg airport we went to pick up our hire car and through a complete misunderstanding between UK and SA car definitions we had ended up ordering a car that was far too small to actually get our luggage plus us in. We'd booked a people carrier and expected to get something with 3 rows of seats plus a decent sized boot space. We got a Toyota verso! The salesperson calmy told us to upgrade it would cost us £3000 (30,000 rand plus!) for the month! This just about floored us and there was no way we could afford it!

We had been in the office for about 30 minutes trying to decide what we could do when the deputy manager who had welcomed us as we arrived said he was surprised we hadn't got going yet. We explained to him what had happened and he said he'd see what he could do. Several calls later he came back and presented us with the keys to a VW Kombi and told us there was no extra charge - just to make sure we enjoyed our trip to his wonderful country!

We were completely amazed and so grateful. I have never known anything like this happen in the UK. I could not thank Europcar enough. Isn't it lovely to know that the magic of Kruger reaches all the way down to the big city!!

Gemma x

I think we underestimate the amount of people who have an incredible amount of good in them, and so much to share, In the cities unfortunately, maybe people are reluctant to be good samaritans for fear of ther own safety. Perhaps in the parks, it becomes more apparent.

Such true words spoken terryc

Gemma, nice story.

Terry, that is indeed the truth, I feel: people are afraid they will be robbed or hurt by helping someone who may be posing as someone in need to lure them.

Wonderful stories!!

I find fellow visitors to Kruger in general to be more “neighbourly” than what a person usually encounter outside of the Kruger gates. Our camera was once left behind at the Mooiplaas picnic spot and a visitor took care of it and when we met in the Letaba shop later that day and it was returned to us . He said he would have handed the camera in at Reception if he did not meet us again. I hope visitors to Kruger will always have that spirit of goodwill towards fellow visitors .