Andrew and Lettie (Oumie) trip to Kruger National Park 2015: Satara 2 nd Time

We left Tsendze one day early, the cold front had come through with annoying winds blowing sand all over the place. Four days is adequate for Tzendze there are great river drives with great spots to sit and watch animals drink.

We saw this small Elephant with a deformed back left leg, it was hobbling along with quiet a big herd near Tsendze

We hope that it was born like that and not lost it in a snare or accident.

Elephant digging a hole to get water in the dry part of the Tsendze river.

Tsessebe which we saw in small groups on occasions

At Tsendze we saw mainly Buffalo and Elephant, plenty Buffalo seeing 3 to 4 huge herds every day and small groups of Dagga boys. On the second night we heard Lion roaring close by, awesome. With no power to charge computers and cameras and everything flat we decided to head back to Satara.

We phoned ahead to see if we could get in at Satara, no problem as we were going onto the Private site courtesy of Willem who organized for us.We started breaking down camp at 09h00 we were on the way by 10h30 arriving at Satara about 14h00.

An uneventful drive until we crossed the high water bridge over the Olifants river where we encountered an enormous bull Elephant walking straight down the middle of the road. We stopped about a 100M away hoping he would move off the road into the bush. Two other cars were reversing towards us as they were in its path. I tried reversing slowly with the caravan which is a difficult task anyway without an angry Elephant pushing you. Both cars reversed past me and still the Elephant came. The one person in the car advised me to turn around as the elephant had pushed him back for a long way. How do you do a 3 point turn with a caravan in tow and an Elephant now only 50M away? I could not reverse as I could not see behind nor could I could I keep a straight line at the speed required to reverse. The Elephant was almost on top of us when I decided to stop, close all windows and see what happens, I could do nothing else, Lettie was almost hysterical the only words coming out was “oh Shit” Was this how our trip was going to end? A car with a tusk through it and an overturned caravan…..

The Elephant walked straight towards our car, stopped 5 meters away raised his trunk shook his head and moved next to my car, passing within 2 meters of the driver’s window. I saw the gap, foot down and before the Elephant could react I was past him caravan and all. A close encounter, after we recovered we suddenly thought why did we not video this, too late it is in the memory forever.

We had always spoken about this happening many times, what would we do if we were confronted by an Elephant while we had the caravan in tow and unable to turn around or reverse. Well let me tell you there is nothing you can do, pull aside leave the car running, close the windows, so he does not pick up your sent, and hope for the best.

Set up camp on the private site with the help of Bongani, everything charged, fridge working DSTV ready for today’s rugby.

How lucky we are to get this site, sitting here typing this with all types of birds swimming in the bird bath, Banded Mongoose and Squirrels scurrying around, Buffalo, Impala and Wildebees visible from the fence.

Last night was the coldest we have been in the Park when it dropped to about 7C daytime is about 23C clearing tomorrow.

Our rusk bin is running low; we have 4 or 5 nights left before we start making our way home. Missing our family, friends, golf, painting, and my own bed.