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Just as well you managed to keep your foot off the ground, or the puffie!

During May this year we stayed at Mopani in bungalow 101.
During the early part of the evening sitting on the verandah listening to the Hippo's and watching the last of the Ellies departing for the night.
My SO noticed movement approximately 2 meters away next to the verandah.
On investigating the movement I realized that it was a young Python, length plus minus 2 meters.
I tried to move it with a broom but it kept moving back to the verandah, eventually I managed to maneuver it onto the pathway.
I could not believe the weight of this young Python, while using the broom.
I phoned the office who informed me that they would send someone immediately to assist.
When Garth Holt (camp manager) arrived and while we were chatting about the Python he pointed out another movement to us on the rock in front of the bungalow.
Low and behold it was a large spotted Genet stalking the python.
Garth was most friendly and assured us that we should not worry about the python as he would just follow his evening route.
After a couple of minutes the snake went down the embankment with the Genet close on its tail.
We never saw them again.
Garth was a star to educated us a bit about Pythons behavior.
Thank you Garth

What an awesome experience Philip1 - interesting They don't seem so scary once you know a bit more about them ...... sometimes


I have passed your thanks onto Garth

Thank you very much, RosemaryH Regards to Garth.

Philip, what an incredible experience.

10/10 for that one.

What an extraordinary experience with the Python philip 1! I don't know whether I would have been able to sleep after a Python visit at all! And a Genet stalking it! My goodness! What a sighting!

Hi MM and Hilda, I can assure you both it was an unusual and learning experience

Maybe more to follow

May 2012 - After a nice braai, shower and sitting having coffee on the deck before settling in for the evening the following happened at our tent No 25 at Tamboti (our favourite Camp)
We could see a whole lot of Dwarf Mongooses, running to and fro from the tent next door.
That was after the Baboons and Vervet Monkeys had come to terrorize us

The sun had set by now and you could hear all the evening noises across the river.
Very quickly a Hyena ran past the fence below us.
The next minute a Genet was sitting at the bottom of the stairs and eyeing us.
Like a real tame house kitty
Soon another visitor also arrived and stood at the braai area also eyeballing us.
Who else but Mr or Mrs Civet

To our amazement the next visitor came scrambling out underneath our tent, straight to the rubbish bin without announcing him/herself.
One of Tamboti's famous Honey Badgers

They were there quite some time, until I got up to enter the tent to fetch the camera.
The next minute the Badger came charging up the stairs while SO and I hurriedly closed the door behind us.
This Badger even tried to open the door, very cheeky
He returned to the rubbish bin and did not like the idea of the bin being empty.
He had another look at us an stormed away with a snort (grunt)

We had a "lekker" laugh afterwards, while the Genet and Civet returned to check us out again

At 2 AM, our friend the Badger came back and woke us with a bang
trying to push the rubbish bin over.
He left and you could hear bins falling as he proceeded from tent to tent looking for food.

And NO we did not feed them.
One of our best nights ever

What an interesting evening you had philip 1! We have also seen those Dwarf Mongooses running around as Tamboti. There normally are quite a lot of them.

To receive a visit by a Genet and a Civet is very special! The Honey Badger is an old resident at Tamboti, but normally to quick to take a picture of him!

Over the years my SO and I had the usual friends popping in at the fence to say a quick hello - hyena, genet and honey badger.

However, it is not the memories of what we saw during those exciting nights at the fence that still gives us goosebumps today.
The scariest moment for us was the very loud noise of a vicious attack one dark evening as we prepared to call it a night.
During the whole ordeal we could only stare at each other (realizing there was not enough time to get the spotlight out).

Lions were veraciously attacking another animal

By the cries of the poor victim it sounded like a hyena but we are still not very sure.
The cries and the noise of the brutal attackers eventually subdued after what felt like a very long time (might have been only a few seconds!).
The attack was left by an eerie silence (and the deafening sound of our pounding hearts...)

By the time we were investigating there were no evidence left of what has happened.

We just got back from a 9 day stay at Berg en Dal and we were very lucky to get a fence site in the lower quieter part of the camp grounds.
It was our first time ever on a fence so we were not expecting much and boy were we wrong not to anticipate sightings.
In our 8 nights there we had Elephants 5 of the days.
3 daytime sightings and 2 night time visits.
I'm fact the very moment we pulled into our site before we even unhitched we had a huge Ellie not 5m from our site.
I was very grateful for the embankment between us I tell you.
That same night we had a mommy rhino and her baby come past.
One afternoon we had a mommy Ellie with 2 very young babies come through, the one was most unhappy with people taking pictures and trumpeted and mock charged several times before running to hide behind mom.

We also had a regular Genet (not sure which one) but it came up several times over 3 nights, his eyes were immediately visible with my low light headlight.
My son went to throw rubbish away on our last night and came screaming back to the camp that a monkey attacked him, turned out to be a Genet that was inside the dustbin and jumped out when he opened it, another camper saw all this happen and gave chase with his torch.

On our forth night there I was wiping down the table after dinner when I hear a almighty kurfuffle behind me and turned around thinking one of my kids had knocked someone over and almost jumped out of my skin when a huge Honey Badger ran past my legs.
I screamed like a banshee having no idea what it was (did I mention this was only my second visit to the park) hubby grabbed his Spot along with a neighbor and followed him through the camp. He attacked a rubbish bin a few sites over and rubbish just went flying as he dug to find whatever he considered treat.
By that time about 20 people had come running to see what was going on and he just continued eating his full in the bin.
Not the least bit intimidated by so many humans.
When he was done he scurried off and went back out the hole he came in which was right in front of my camp.
He tried to get back in a few min later but our neighbor had blocked the hole with bricks.
The next morning the bricks were scattered so I assumed they did nothing to stop him really.

We are early risers to get out of camp early and be the first on the roads so we were up at 4:30 daily and On our sixth morning hubby went to the loo and shortly after a lady came running back to her camp across the road from us and very hurriedly zipped up her tent.
15min later the rangers arrived and I heard her telling them "something big had growled at her from behind the bushes near the bathroom"
Hubby was still in the loo at that time showering so I worried a bit and tracked the rangers and they went to the bottoms of the camp and were banging and clapping their hands and car doors so something was there. Later that day I heard talk of a Hyena and I thought "no way" probably just the Honey Badger again but my next door neighbor told me that at 4am they heard a heck of a racket at the fence so they opened up their tent to see what was happening and came face to face with a huge Hyena on the other side of the fence, this was mere meters from the hole in the fence in my camp.
So I have no proof but I suspect a Hyena got into camp that morning.

Also had baboon and Vervets raiding sites too and daily squirrels and dwarf mongoose which were lovely to watch.

First time on a fence but not a last, it was amazing to be so close to nature.

Philip, another fascinating encounter.

Jubs, I always find sound the most chilling of the senses. I can just imagine your feelings at the time.

Trentonskeeper, a very warm welcome to you A fascinating and entertaining first post. I must say, I laughed out loud. I hope we see a lot more of you.

Hallo there!!

I have seen the following.

Shingwedzi : Elephant and impala (outside fence)

Tamboti : hyena (outside fence),honey badger and vulure in nest with young (inside fence)

Orpen : impala,zebra,koedoe,elephants (outside fence)

Letaba : Bushbaby with fell out tree and died (inside fence)

Skukuza : Hyena,imphala and zebra (in personel camp)

It seems as though most of these encounters happen at the camping sites..I 'll be camping in BnD this December. Any advice as to where I should set up camp to get the most action?

My Favourite spot at Berg en Dal is right at the end of the camping site there is an culda-sac, I like camping any where along that fence