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Haven't done anything really silly.
I suppose the closest we came to it (and we did feel quite foolish) was leaving the car doors open at a look out point so that we could dive into our car and make a fast get away if a predator did show up... this made a great point of entry to our car for a vervet who then stole some of our food.
If we'd rolled out a red carpet, it couldn't have been more inviting for him..

We did go back a few days later and sat in the car, with the windows up, munching ostentatiously on some delicious food just in case he was watching...

Great story Madach!

I've just remembered a silly one on the same road, also with lion. We pulled up to one of those little lookouts on the sand loops, one where only one car can fit and peep over the edge of the riverbank. There were a few lionesses down there, which was pretty good timing as I'd just told my sister-in-law (back then very young and gullible ) that if we didn't see lion to complete the big 5 on that daytrip she'd be walking home from Skukuza. Only problem was, when we came to leave, our front tyres were stuck in the sand! I was having nightmare visions of my young SIL wanting to get out with lion about to be the hero when fortunately we broke free. I forbade her from telling her mother...

On our first trip to the luxury tented units at Lower Sabie, we quickly unpacked our car as we arrived in the arvie............being in one of the perimeter units, didn't realise the necessity of blocking the fridge once it was fully packed (full with Woolies treats!!!!)

So we shot off to Sunset Dam to catch the last few minutes of sunset, only to return to find every single item of food, now i'm talking about potatoe salad, desserts, eggs, rolls the whole toot, absolutely destroyed by baboons..............

Our neighbours were kind enough to give me a running commentry of what went down, who ate what, and how, and how much fun it was to watch this whole episode!!!!

Never the less.............restaurant food the entire weekend, but still a great weekend was had, with great memories!!!

I will never forget to block the fridge EVER again in any camp in Kruger!!!

Same thing happened to us at Lower Sabie tents.
Baboons did eat crisps, onions but didnt like the pepper
We learnt to put all our food in the fridge.
Hence the pepper

We once made the realy silly mistake of running out of petrol!
We were so focused on squeezing the absolute most out of our last day - trying to avoid camps as much as possible - trying to stay on the dirt roads for as long as possible - and then there we sat!!
Thank goodness the really great guys from Orpen (with the assistance of the equally great guys at Talamati) came and found us, with a canister of petrol.

I was at Tsokwane a few years ago and there was tihs little monkey whom was on his way to snatch up a piece of bannana that lied on the ground about a meter away from where I was standing..I thought I will stomp my foot just as he was about to take the bannana to give him a fright but to my suprize he jumped on his hind legs screaming MURDER swinging his arms and running towards me..I had to retreat very quickly from this baby monkey I was scared he bites me and all the tourists BURST out laughing @ me
I also laugh about it now

Interesting stories about the baboons and monkeys. We fell foul of them once, despite having barricaded the fridge (obviously not enough and they are clever little varmints ) and whilst the monkeys played havoc throwing eggs and fruit all over the lawn a crowd gathered and found it all very entertaining. Now excuse me if I'm wrong but wouldn't it have been nicer if someone had intervened? Fortunately the shop was well supplied so we were able to restock

While on the baboons at LS tents
Last year while sitting in the shade behind our tent and kinda of
going into my deep think mode...
Woke up to the sound of dustpins .
Saw a baboon going to our tent
I then silently crept to the tent veranda to chase the baboon(s) away.

When entering the arena i saw a fully grown male sitting in one of the deckchairs taking it easy. The only thing missing was a Castle in his hand. King of Lower Sabie

The stupid thing is that had my camera near my thinking chair but forgot to take it with me on my investigation
It would have been a picture breaking world news.

The following happened in Knysna, last thursday.

WTD and I were on our way to go camp a night on the wooden decks in Knysna @ Diepwalle (It was later renamed to Glywalle).

We've set out from Grootbrakrivier in stepmom's toyota 1.8 and did some serious birding as we went along.

Everything went as smooth as a Vitoria Secret model's bum until midway thru chomping a calamari starter @ the Knysna Spur... It struck me front on like the day that gumbug struck me on the forehead when I were given a lift on the front handlebars on my chum's blue BMX in std.3. I clean forgot to take bedding material. No pillows... no blankets, air matrass, no duvets... niks, ke fokole!

There was no bicycle tjoep's chance in a open park in Duncanville that I was going to drive back the 90kms to go fetch it.

So there WTD and I dashed around knysna like the kug's from Sandton accumulating neccessary material as we go along. but with a 4yr old one tends to end up buying only half the stuff you set out to with the other half being toys and sweets and colouring utensils.

Be right back...

Ok, like I've said... I only got half the stuff eventually... with blankets and braai tongs counting under the top 2 most important left out.

Maar Oom W™ is mos bang vir niks... so there we go, on the gravel R322 or was it R311, well it doesn't matter now cause we eventually got there with one moerske excitement.

First stop... some real kug's in their 4x4. They're lost... Well so am I but they don't have to know that as I stride out to them with my SANP shirt on. I could check the goose in the passenger seat as her disdained look gave way to a flickering of hope in her eyes with the sight of the SANP kudu logo. "This oke mos works here" I hear her chune her boyfriend, sporting with a "Chuck se moer -> check hierdie boer" t-shirt.

Follow me I tell them, I know what I am doing.

By some miracle I got them to their destination. Die Groot boom. And by some miracle I got WTD and I to diepwalle. With awesome sightings of Crowned Eagle, Forest buzzard and African goshawk on the way.

Check in time.

Luckily for me Mina Mowers from SANP organize me a single matrass. WTD and I will fit laugh laugh on it... or will we? Anyhoo. I take the SANP issued tent and drive to our deck.

It's cold... It's moer cold...

I don't see any other cars and decide to park at the sign reading: "nr.3". Thats our deck. Big mistake... It's on a slightly angled grassy slope.

Anyhoo... I carry all the goods to the deck, pitch up the tent and have a cold one.

Now back @ the car, I spot the real parking bays, around the corner of the ablution building. WTD sits at the front braai area colouring in winnie the pooh... with a blue piglet... perhaps she also felt the cold. LOL!

Gooi in reverse! Drop the clutch... niks... just what WTD would later describe as "wrrrrrrrrr! wrrrrrrrr!" I spin that toyota that you only check clay fly.

Get out... No worries, I need a few rocks and some branches and that will be end of my worries. I watch Kyk-net often. 4x4 shows and stuff.

Under the wheels I go... that's it! that will do it.

Reverse, drop the clutch! "Wrrrrrrrrrrrr! wrrrrrrrr!!". "I know the smell between crap and toothpaste, and I am not gonna brush my teeth with this" I say to myself.

WTD suggest we go fetch her ouma (gran) cause she knows how to drive the car.

then WTD, typical woman, tells me that I should never have parked there in the first place.

Be right back...

By this time my neighbour was lying on the floor. Bliksem.

The grass looks dry, but I soon realize that I can stick my thumb into the ground without trying.

Then a SANP official rocks up. "Wat het ons hier, meneer?" ("What do we have here, sir?") he asks. Wel, hier het on 'n toyota corolla wat in sy moer in vas sit" (Well, here we have a toyota corolla stuck for all love and money) I reply.

He laughs and tells me that he will go get help at the office. The same office where I've told the staff 30mins ago that their stuffed red-breasted sparrowhawk was actually a little sparrowhawk. There goes my reputation... out of the window. I would love to have known what was said in that office. LOL! I am sure it was something in the region of "Ja-nee kyk, hierdie meneer van die stad het nou lekker sy naam kom loop gatmaak hier by ons". ("The oke from the city made a fool of himself").

Then a chick (I think she was a ranger) and her blonde lady friend rocks up. After giving me a bit of a lecture in how not to get stuck she smiles and walks off and pull me out with the 4x4. Hee hee.. big oops for me.

Later on that night they came driving by as I was trying to get cell reception to phone home. I made a dive roll in behind a
drum so that they couldn't see me. Too late... they did. She asked me if I was in trouble again. With a guilty schoolboy look on my face I replied no, that I was just waiting for WTD to come back fro mthe loo, when lil WTD shouted from the tent direction that I must hurry up, cause she wants to go see the "bosspook" (forest ghost). I left with a redface, once again.

That night, I realised that I only had two lil blankies... A springbok one and a barbie girl one. Together with two big towels I managed to get WTD and myself covered. That night I learnt that a 4yr old can wrap herself up in a blanket better then a savoury pancake. I ended up getting dressed in all my clothes and wrapping a towel around my feet. I hardly slept as the wood owls and genets had a moerofa party outside. I did get some awesome genet photos as result of my ordeal thou. LOL.

Anyhoo, I made sure that I was gone by first light the next morning to save some face, but not before one of the staff walked up to me and told me: "Meneer moet nou asb nie weer erens in die bos gaat loop vassit nie, hoor?" ("Please don't get stuck in the bush somewhere again, hear?").

I've learnt my lesson... Never again will I mock an oke ever again after getting stuck. The blind sjambok talks back... not today, not tomorrow, but someday it will...

OMG!!
Let me tell you about my stupid moment!

SO wanted to give me a surprise by unexpectedly taking me to the park for our anniversary. We arrived just before gate closing time, and in my own defence, it was pretty dark by then. We booked into the safari tent and settled for the night. Now SO is the man who HAS to be at the gate FIRST, make no mistake. He is also last to wake up, 2 min before the gate opens is a good time. He then flies out of bed, grabs the car keys, takes about 3 paces to get to the car, starts up and goes! Game viewing first, ablutions later! If he does not get out first - bad mood for the rest of the day!

So I set my alarm for nice and early, made the morning coffee and packed it all in the car. About 5 min before the time I nicely woke him up and darted to the ablution block for a last visit before leaving. By that time I was quite sure that I was spending the rest of the morning in camp all by myself. I ran back to the tent ripped open the door and in the twilight I saw a body still fast asleep in bed. Believe me, I was not amused. In one fell swoop I ripped the blankets right off the bed not shutting my mouth for a single moment. " Um.........." I hear an unfamiliar sleepy voice, "I think you are in the wrong tent". I closed my eyes for a millisecond of total disbelieve and looked again. (Censored...................).I think I muttered something like "sorry" and hightailed it out of there!

When got to the car, there So was sitting, fuming from the ears because he could hear the gate's hinges creek! "Were the heck were you?" he asked. "To the loo, just took the longer way back." was the only thing I could say.

Do you have any idea what it feels like to spend a whole weekend dodging every guy in camp? Not nice!
(I hope there was no YR on "his" wing mirror!)

Driving on the H1-6 towards Shingwedzi once, all on my own. Things were pretty quiet and I started to play with the side view mirror, the one where the Yellow Ribbon is suppose to hang, when I heard something in the road. When I looked up I saw a buffalo running in front of the car, bumper almost touching him. Poor animal, as a last resort he emptied his stomach contents all over the car's bonnet and windscreen. I have no idea where he came from. Luckily I was going slow and no damage was done to either buffalo or car.
Got to be wakey wakey all the time.

We saw something quite funny once. We were driving near Afsaal when a red VW Golf approached from the front with something on its roof. When it got closer the "something" turned out to be a camera with a zoom lense!! I waved the car down and the driver looked at me with excitement - perhaps some lions somewhere?
I wish I took a photo of his face when I told him where his camera was! They were still waving with big smiles when dissapearing around the bend.

We made a plan small kids at that stage and all.We used a plastic fold up chair, the ones you use next to a swimming pool the small one. Cut a hole in the seat part for the urgent ee.... yes that.

We had to stop one day and then we open both doors on the other half's side of the car(next to the edge of the road). Put the chair out and then with all the comfort in the world the little one could do the necessary. Being scared and all, she was reluctant at first but knowing we use this method in Namakwaland, relaxed and went for it. After all was done we drove away and about 3 km further on we remember our "seat". needless to say I turned around and found the chair with another car parked next to it looking for the person who left it. I had to explain what it is and why and that we were not having a picnic next to the road.

Now we leave this at home when we go to the park. She's to big now anyway.