Oh my God,wow and wow!

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  Campfire Safaris, South Africa
Tuesday, November 13, 2007

Well, possibly the best Friday night of my life I reckon! After a great stir fry braai (try saying that after a couple of diet cokes) we all climbed aboard the bakkie for a night drive. Usual insructions,keep all your limbs in, don't stand up (therefore identifying yourself as prey - not recommended) and off we went . Eyes peeled and watching for the slightest indication of animals by spotting the reflection of their eyes in the lamp that is arced back and forth (by someone who ends up with a very tired arm) into the bush as we move.
After half an hour or so and a few impala, a couple of giraffe and zebra we all strained forward and someone said "ahead - what's that?-is it, is it, oh my God -it is a lion!!! As we then swung the light around we began to pick up more sets of eyes and shapes emerging from the bush all around us - we hadn't found just one lion but a whole pride! Thre were between 6 and 10 lions with 2 particularly huge males with beautiful manes . If you haven't been on a night game drive b4 you would be quite surprised I think about how unconcerned the animals generally are about a vehicle and lights. These lions seemed particularly unbothered as they were in hunting mood, and having earlier seen an injured steinbok (small antelope) we imagined that it might serve as a starter for one of them at least (that's nature I'm afraid)
One of the large males sat down and we drew closer until we were about 25feet away from this magnificent creature; he yawned and wow, those teeth - you really wouldn't want to be anywhere near them - you'd have no chance.

George & I discussing angles..

Tish, our guide, asked someone to keep a torch on the back of the bakkie at all times because altho we weren't necessarily on the menu they were in hunting mode and can therefore be dangerous and damn sneaky - just swiping someone off the back of the bakkie for example...... It was quite surreal really, sitting on an opened topped bakkie, with lions all around -quite hard to grasp somehow, but fantastic. Periodically one or more of them would get up and move off and we in turn would follow scanning the bush front , back and sides to check where they were. They settled down again near a small pool of water that had formed after the downpour we'd had the other night and again we sat and watched hardly breathing as one or two of them crouched and lapped water from the pool. One of our number had brought a camera and becos the bakkie lights were on managed to gt a half decent pic (so thanks for sharing Inge) After watching them drinking for a while we left them in peace and continued on our game drive, everyone was thrilled with what we'd seen.

So, what else has been happening? Well, the insects are getting worse by the day, moths the size of your hand -beautifully patterned but they give you a right start if they fly in your face I can tell you(can't they Tom?) Krista was minding her own business to the shower one evening and then realised to her horror she was sharing it with a scorpion - only a really venemous one you understand .... As it's dark just after 6pm you need to use a torch to move around camp and one evening some poor toad was on the receiving end of being flipped (appropriately) by the end of my flip flop and launched into the air (he was ok you'll be glad to know!)
However,you can't see everything and you will sometimes feel the unpleasant crunch of a millipede being squished underfoot or any one of 100 or so different beetles -some of them are amazing looking although I can never feel happy at the sight of a cockroach -bleuugh! There are quite a few types of toad and frog about and I really rather like them (note to self - make pond when I get home)

We've had a number of interesting road crossings in the last week or so - on the way out of Jejane Nature Reserve a black mamba shot across the road up a tree and down again -you would not believe the speed of the thing - I'm glad it was moving swiftly away from us -only one of the most deadly snakes in Africa...

Hanky - 1 of our friendly vervets

Driving into Campfire one afternoon a mongoose ran across the road straight into a presumably vacant termite mound. The bush creatures are very good at recycling property. Porcupine, warthog and antbear holes all make good homes, once vacated, for smaller mammals or snakes. Hey, here's an interesting navigational aid for you -obviously extremely useful in the UK (not); should you need to find North locate your nearest termite mound and the chimney will be pointing North -true!
Tortoise are on the rampage at the moment too -we've seen a few trundling acrossing various roads although one tiny little one we found the other day (it could fit in the palm of my hand-aaahh) had quite an impressive turn of speed that could almost qualify as a sprint! It's also snake season too and a drive along the tarmaced road into Hoedspruit can be an interesting experience at times especially if a snake is spotted on the road (they come on to the tarmac as it's nice and warm) as of course being conservationists and animal lovers the bakkie will of course swerve to miss it, never mind the humans on top of course hanging on for dear life, we're here for the animals!
I think I'm going to sign off now as this is already a bit late and it's about 38 degrees C here at the moment on Weds 15th Nov (happy birthday Phil Avery) and we spent 3 hours in the sun raking bits of rock out of sand and then picking the raked rocks up and depositing them elsewhere - hey -I didn't go to Uni for nothing you know....

Hope you're keeping well and warm (I'm off the drink another litre of water -that's at least 4 today) and also spend the next 3 days trying to upload some photos, which is why (William) I haven't put loads in my album as it takes forever.

Here's the scorpion pic...

I have however started to populate some previous pieces (the hippo one at least -so have a look if you fancy - I'll try and put the scorpion on my face pic in the right place too)
Lots of love etc Africa Sal
xxx

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Lions by night .....

Millipedes can be huge!

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