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WAC don't leave us in suspence for too long!
On my first trip to the park in 2001, the SO's 2000th he was showing me all kinds of interesting stuff including 4 of the big 5.

After an enourmously awesome day we were heading home via the Kruger gate. We were traveling on the S4 all tired and ready to go home as we turned the corner onto the Kruger Gate road my hubby's half closed eyes opened in surprize with the question "Now who the %^$# would put the Letaba Museums Ellephant Statue here?" The words was hardly out of his mouth when suddenly we were traveling in the direction we were coming from .... with the 'Statue' short on our heels!!

Afterwards we were laughing all the way home

Ok, first one as a tourist. Old days Kruger on the S90, the morning we saw a pride with cubs about 4 K's in. That afternoon we went back & saw them again. Young guys, myself & Chris in a Nissan 1400. Suddenly a young male charged. Not to get damaged we went down the road at great haste.

The pride was between us & Satara. Everytime we got close 3 lions being a young male & female wit an old female charged the Bakkie. By now we were 3 cars. Young man with BMW decided to go, the young male jumped onto bonnet & cracked windscreen. (Some peeps in KNP will remember this story). Right behind him the Camry went & lost a fender. We were next.....

Also read this

Hey WTM, was at Letaba with my folks when they towed the little white golf with the tuskholes in. There was a fair stench to it.

Well, back to my lions. Nissan was in 3rd, doing about 40 down the dirt road, getting dark by then. As we passed the 3 troublemakers I felt relief but, only for about 1 second. The next moment my right mirror was filled by a big black mane & claws. Daddy decided we need a lesson. He hit the bakkie so hard with his right paw that the tailgate sprang half open. I nearly peed my pants & put foot.

We came around the corner & nearly slammed into the night drive truck. They knew about the situation & came to have a look. It later turned out some visitors ran over one of the lion cubs & picked it up & took it to camp

Some damage to the Bakkie, but we came out with only a good scare.

This was related to me by a trails ranger on Olifants trail in 1990's .
The trails huts mostly have a mirror attached to the inside of the door , one of the trailists was combing his/her hair after showering and thought it strange that droplets of water were falling on the back of their hand , as the hair was quite dry by then . On turning around a cobra was visible in the rafters above the door from where it had been spitting on the trailist in response to the hand and arm movements of the hair brushing .

Niceone, I had to teach mine to cook.

OK, my second one. I was sitting at the restaurant in Skuks in 1991, taking pics of the bushbabies that was in the cafeteria (It was still open on the river side.) I was camping in a tent at the top of the camp.

I heard the leopard somewhere aroung saw'ing away. A buff came close to the fence 40 meters down from the restaurant. It was about 1am. As I started walking back I got very uncomfortable, looking back I saw nothing. All through the walk to my tent I knew something was there, I was only going up the old riverbed that I turned around & saw the spotted one slinking into the shadow of a caravan.(Yes, inside the camp)

From there I saw it about 4 times & by the time I was 20meters from my tent it was very close. I turned around & let the flash on my camera, one of those seperate goodies, go, seeing a female leopard about 8 meters away. With the flash she jumped away & dissapeared. I never saw her again.

Just proves the point. The fence is there to keep the animals inside & not the other beasties outside.

Oh yes, I did nearly S#*^ myself

I have a bunch of hair raising stories as well but probably my most humiliating was at Tshokwane..It was during the September holidays in 2002 and I was there with my grandparents..The whole picnic spot was packed with tourists.. When I saw a small piece of bannana lying on the ground and a small baby vervet monkey making his way to it..I thought I would give it a fright and myself a laugh by stomping my foot right infront of the piece of bannana just when the monkey reached it(boy was I wrong), instead of getting a fright it jumped on his hind legs and started screeming and swinging his arms at me while chasing me through the picnic spot...everybody was roaring with laughter as I had to cover alot of gound before it finally left me alone..

I worked for several years in England (nogal at Lords cricket ground). I was missing the bush and Kruger terribly when i saw a story in one of the papers.

It was called "holiday from hell"

Anyway the story went that Mr Brittish tourist went walking on the rocks near CT somewhere and stepped on a sea urchin.

Now he went to the doctor who gave him some medicine. The docter then aparently told him that the best medicine was to wee on the stinging injury. After not wanting to do this he was told that sea water is also just as good.

So our injured foot friend then went and walked the sea. (Not a rocky stretch mind you). But he did this without a shirt... At twelve noon.... with a white brittish skin.. for 3 hours.

So now our honoured guest had a very itchy sore foot and has to visit same doctor for severe sunburn and some heatstroke.

So from cape Town the trip now goes to the customary "safari" in kruger. In Kruger our friend finds some amazing sightings. Not least of which is barely born girraffe baby. And he promptly decides he wants to feed the baby.

Now mommy girraffe did not like this pink human with a severe limp trying to feed her baby. So she promptly smacked him with her head. Breaking 4 ribs and a colarbone.

That was where holiday ended for Mr brittish guest and where the "hell" tag took over.

I guess if you want to be "unclever" then painfull things will happen.

Buffalo attacks woman

Hayena attacked & killed garden help in GreaterKNP yesterday, the attack happened while the hired help was watching telly.

I go back quite a few years and not in SA.
Was guiding a Swiss filming crew in various national parks (3 months filming leopards for a documentary) and moved our base camp every 10 days.

Leopards are territorial and this obliged us to move often so as not to get the beautiful animals too used to us, we actually followed them from 4 am to 8 pm 7 days a week. After two months we had got fed up of finding leopards used to humans around them and followed the advice of the locals and moved out of the reserves.
2 hours from the nearest town or tar road, dry bush and lots of rocky hills around. Took us 5 days to spot our first one and decided it was there we would end out filming tour. Luck of all lucks, a mateing pair and had a fantastic first week listening to them during the night but with very little filming done.
My hairy day, dinner time, eleven of us under a big safari tent enjoying our dinner and haveing the normal end of the day chat. As I would normaly do I was keeping an eye at what the cook was in walks our male leopard, enters the tent and walks the whole length of it and stops at the other end/exit.
I must admit I felt my hair go straight up the back of my neck and took one of my coldest decisions: say nothing as no one else had seen it, all too busy talking, eating and drinking. The only other witness was the cook who saw it only because he entered the tent straight after the animal but stopped immediately and was so scared he froze where he was.
The animal came so close his tail touched my arm and I still believe that had I said something about it the crew would have panicked.
The final, and maybe surprising behaviour of the leopard was his marking, urine, the spot he had reached before vanishing.
I slowly got up and asked for some silence, while the cook ran and hid in the land cruiser, and told the film crew what had just happend. At first no one wanted to believe me and only on seeing all the signs did they understand what had happend and how close the animal was to them.

It's difficult to understand the leopards behaviour, we were in 12!, if not to mark it's territory and this it did very well. The following days was fantastic for the filming and we'd moved the whole camp outside the leopards mateing area.

Had many other close encounters with wild animals (elephant, buffalo, hippo and very pissed off warthog) but this is the only time I felt my hair go up straight.

What an amazing experience you had RUMURUTI. Most of us spend years looking for leopards in parks and they just walk up to you. Must say I'm a bit jealous . It might have been a very dangerous situation but because you stayed calm it became something you will never forget.

Thank you for sharing it with us.

My first walk in Big 5 country. We were using the old method of 1st rifle at the front and 2nd rifle at the back. I was 2nd in line behind the guide. We had heard all the instructions about not running, etc..... but I was worried about how I would react if danger threatened.

Suddenly there was a huge noise and commotion in the grass right behind the guide and in front of me (a distance of barely 1m). I froze - no sound or movement - just the right response. fortunately.

Then I realised a francolin had been flushed from the grass as the guide walked past! No danger at all...... but I was reassured that I would react properly if danger really did threaten! The guide told us about the 'heart-attack bird' - and gave me an approving smile. I now walk with much more confidence in the bush.

And a second story.... on the Struwig reserve with one of our mods as guide..... We had stopped on the banks of the Olifants for a break on our morning walk. Folk were sitting around enjoying the quietness, and I had found a log to sit on. I heard a noise, turned around and saw a drongo fly up. A few minutes later I heard the guide call my name softly and tell me to come to him. I gathered up my things and walked over. Then saw everyone was looking over to where I had been sitting - and a herd of elephants were walking through the reeds! They were VERY close to where I had been. We retreated behind a big jackalberry tree and then up the bank. Eventually the ellies passed and we went back for things folk had left behind. Later we were close to the ellies again when one squealed and nearly caused mayhem in the group! Fortunately we had already been shown a termite mound to use and some folk were on top of it before they realised they had moved...

As a child I followed my father on his hunting trips and he taught me to respect all animals not for what they represent to us humans but for their nature and role in it.
Lions are lions and we can't expect them to behave as pussy cats or anything else. Same for leopards or any other animal. People find it difficult to follow me when I try and explain it all but it puts me very close to what nature is, how it behaves and how "we" should behave when in it.
On another thread I wrote that I have more fear of humans than animals; humans are highly unpredicable while animals follow nature and re easier to understand.

On a cool and windy day while on Metsi trail in 1991 we had been stopped for a discussion / interpretation for a few minutes when a warthog launched itsself out of the other side of an antheap very near to me and made a rapid , grunting getaway .