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I think there are lot of Stories which are either bone chilling or funny at all. I just remeber a NP close to Knysna. This camp was very Bushy. WE had to fight agains Vervet Monkey, who learned the best thing to get food is to steal it from Humans and Mice which were in the cupboard. Anyway I dislike unpack the car, so the first thing I have done when we arrived at the camp was to see the Loo. The Problem was it was a loo without Roove. I just entered and then a Snake fall on my head. I was screaming like hell. Because it was a Snake which was Green. My first thuoght was Boomslang or Green mamba. But luckily the Snake was as scarry as I was. I run left and the Snake pushed of to the right sight. I was really under shock for a while because you really do not expeckt a Snake which jumps at your head when you are entering the loo.

Nice one, Malealea!

Here's a story about being silly...

It was a few weeks before Dwarf's wedding, and as school holidays had started for me, I went into the Park early on a Friday, to be met by Dwarf coming from work later. We were to overnight in Pretoriuskop Camp for one night only, as he had to work the Saturday.

As I wombled around the area that morning, I noticed a lovely pool of water that had dammed up next to the concrete drift across the Faai stream on the loop of that name, and an idea began to take shape in my mind, as the day was very hot indeed...

Around lunchtime Dwarf arrived, we checked in, and went on a leisurely afternoon drive...

One thing led to another and we were soon in heated discussion, over a large number of "cooldrinks", as to the intricacies of the coming nuptials...

The intention was to go via Doispane to Afsaal and then back along the Voortrekker Road...needless to say this itinerary was optimistic to say the least, and the closer we got to closing time, the more animals we saw...as always happens if you are late...

It was early summer, so plenty of light left even after gate closing time, as we careered toward camp on what had become an impromptu small bachelor's party...having sort of given up on making it in time!

And it was so damned hot!

Johnny Clegg and Paul Simon were playing, the cooler was working perfectly, no tourists about, and then the inviting pool appeared...

We parked the car on the causeway with the doors open so we could hear the music...stripped down to undies and jumped in!

Ahhh, it was magic! Sun setting, "Scatterlings of Africa" reverberating around the bush, cool water washing the dust and sweat off...

If you ever want to swim there, there is even a convenient tussock of little baby reeds next to an underwater sandbank, so you can safely put your beer and smokes down while you sit semi-submerged, and leave them there should you go for a periodic submersion...BLISS!

(Take an empty can to use as an ashtray, though...don't want to litter!

Anyway, once the sun had set it was becoming a little dangerous, so we set off for camp with damp pants, but what can one do!

We were over an hour late, but fortunately there was a stream of "official" traffic entering and exiting Pretoriuskop!

It was a weekend, as I said, so can vividly remember the gate guard was too busy loading his kids onto transport, so he only took our permit and told us to fetch it at reception the next morning...

I did so, in a rather more serious frame of mind, to put it mildly, and had to pay a R200 fine!

So, the moral of the story is...it was a pretty cheap wedding present!

My story is verrrry embarassing. A friend was outside making the braai, and I went to take a shower. When I went in, the sliding door was open... when I came out it was not, which I found out much to my embarrasment. Problem was I must have gone into it at a strange angle, and the whole door came off to finish up on the floor. At just the moment this happened, a research student arrived to do a survey.
Just a little embarrassed

She did return with the survey later in the evening, and said it appeared that we were having a VERY GOOD holiday. (how dare she make such assumptions - all untrue of course)

In one of my not so fine moments I went on a morning walk with Lourens in BnD back in 2008. All went well, I was the only guest on the walk with them and we just had our break watching baboons and giraffes. I was use to walk in the veld with my brother who is a game ranger so I knew more or less to be quite as possible listening to the bush sounds and Lourens explaining of things.

We walked in a rocky area on the trail of a black rhino. Lourens was leading with the second ranger behind him and then me. As I passed a bush a "Hartaanval voël" (Heart Attack bird) aka a francolin flew up from it's hiding place chittering all the way. I nearly jumped on the ranger in front of me back giving a not so gently scream. While they had laugh about it we heard something big running off in the bush and as we got round the corner there was a rhino mud puddle minus a rhino.
Whenever I see a francolin I start to blush and LOL thinking of that episode

Fanta , I have got a good few frights from the francolins as well as warthog suddenly ejecting from its burrow 2 metres away from me one cold day on Metsi trail when I walked a short distance away from the group to answer a call of nature .

I had a few warthog frights as well but not in the park but rather at place where my brother was based in Limpopo years ago named "Lang Jan". A mommy warthog even chased me once, got respect for them now.

I call the Francolins, the "Drama Queens" of the bushveld.
and can just imagine what they can do to your heart rate when tracking wild animals in the bush.

Good thread, I remember as a young child (maybe 5 or 6), we visited Kruger as day visitors. This was in the 80's during the extreme dry weather Kruger was experiencing. It was a warm day and we didn't have aircon in the car. The back windows were open where my brother and I was sitting on the back seats. We had stopped on the bridge across the Sabie River and we were looking at the river. There was a troop of monkeys on the bridge. Our padkos (food for the road) had one roll with marmite left. I was eyeing this bread roll and had booked it for myself for a little later. Next thing I knew there was a greyish blue blur in through one window, on the middle seat and out of the other window with my roll. I was distraught at losing out seeing the culprit enjoying my roll on the bridge...at least we learned to close our windows whenever we get close to baboons or monkeys....

Last December my mom and I were driving on the S21. For about 10km there were branches and leaves etc strewn over the road. Clearly there was a very unhappy ellie somewhere. We turned in at a small water hole when I just heard a loud screeching noise and my first thought was we've found the unhappy ellie and I sped off. My mom started laughing hysterically telling me that the sound came from the wind mill not an irate ellie!

BushBaby, I know that windmill well on the S21, it has the most eerie screech,
long overdue for a little bit of oil.

I enjoyed the contributions so I will add my red face night!

A few years ago we decided to change our Kruger experience and bought a new 360 Turbo tent and a few basics. Because it was our first camping experience we decided on a one night stand at BnD.

We pitched our tent next to the fence in record time. Our neighbours were an old friendly couple and they looked on as we went through the motions. By the looks of things, they had years of experience.

It was still extremely hot when we left for our sunset drive so I decided to leave the "windows" of the tent open. Waving goodbye to the neighbours, I was already looking forward to the camp fire and braai later that evening.

About one hour into our drive the weather changed and it started to rain "cats and dogs". We were cold arriving back at camp and disappointingly discovered the tent ankle deep in water. It was only a few weeks later that I bought the two stretchers and small table....

Later that evening I stood in the drizzle under my small umbrella while turning the "chops and wors" - nothing could prevent me from enjoying the evening in paradise!

Needless to say, my wife books a bungalow or hut for our nights out at Kruger, regardless of my pleads to rather go camping

I am going to bring up a couple of old stories that appear in a trip report from a camping trip with Freda.

We were going to spend a couple of nights at Balule, my first ever experience of camping without electricity.

The first "stupid" thing was putting the tent up. We were in a hurry to go on a drive, so we just wanted to "do the basics". We pitched the tent, and Freda's famous last words were "don't worry about pegs, I never worry about pegs".

The first thing we saw on our return was our tent in a tree never trust a Kruger wind

second happening on that trip was MM off to take a bath at night. It was pitch dark and I realised that I would need a torch to see what I was doing. I threw my clothes into the bath to make sure no one "pinched it" while I was gone.

To my horror, once I returned I saw that the previous person had not emptied their bath water and my clean dry clothes were now soaked in someone else's dirt

My clothes ended up needing to be dried in the very tree that had so lovingly caught our tent.