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Ralph & Angela's travels
Kruger National Park 17 July - 3 August 2006
The fig, Ficus Sycomorus, is a beautiful sprawling canopied tree whose fruit provides nourishment for many birds, monkeys and bats. It can take 30-40 years to reach a height of 20 metres. The genus has been around since the Cretaceous period and in that time it has developed a unique relationship with wasps, so that every fig species is pollinated by a specific wasp species.
Sadly, 100 million years of evolution had not prepared a 10 ft fig sapling in Skukusa camp, Kruger National Park for the crushing impact of our runaway 4x4 trailer, but at least it stopped the trailer from ploughing in to the side of a motorhome. The occupier of the motorhome was talking on his mobile at the time, and was blissfully unaware of the drama nearby. We later discovered that he was phoning his motorhome rental company to thank them for the prompt replacement of their vehicle, the previous one having being trashed by a bull elephant the day before.
Trailer brake failure was the only hiccup in our otherwise smooth journey north east to Kruger for a 17 day stay. The sheer size of the park took some getting used to. We did 250 kilometre game drives and remained in the bottom south west corner of the park. It is apparently the size of Wales, with the added advantage of having no Welshmen in it.
We saw a wide variety of animals, some of the highlights being a pride of lions (14 of them) walking down the road in hunting mode, nocturnal rarities such as small spotted genet, honey badger and civet, an eagle owl in a tree with a recently caught guinea fowl in it's talons, a hyena being harassed off it's kill by a lone wild dog, hippos fighting, a yellow billed stork struggling to eat a lively frog and fruit bats devouring fruit from a huge fig tree overlooking the Sabie River.
With 17 days at Kruger we quickly established a camping routine. I got up just before Dawn (have I mentioned her yet?) and made Angela tea in bed, did the washing up, prepared breakfast, made the sandwiches for lunch, drove Angela around all day, spotted the wildlife for her, cooked her dinner and maintained the tent, the trailer and the Landrover. The rest I left to Angela!
Scrub from your mind the image of Angela & I camping on the ground huddled round a single burner gas stove, dib dib dobbing by candlelight. Our double bed is nearly 6ft off the ground, we have a duvet and blankets (it has dropped below freezing some nights), an enclosed dressing area, a kitchen unit that includes a two burner stove and a hook up to mains electrics that allows us to run lights, a fan heater, and a fridge large enough for 12 bottles of wine, Gordon's Gin and Schweppes tonics, the latter two being purely to combat malaria). Where there are no electrics we will run the lights and fridge off the two 12 volt batteries in the front of the trailer, which are charged from the car when travelling. We carry two 4.5kg gas bottles, 60 litres of fresh water in an integral tank and we have four 25 litre petrol cans, which we will fill when visiting countries without the infrastructure of South Africa.
One incident worth mentioning was that we ended one late afternoon game drive to recover a BMW 5 series driven by an Israeli with minimal road sense, he'd managed to ground it so that one front wheel was 8 inches off the road. Forgetting the fact that we'd been watching 4 lions about half a mile away, we put the tow rope on his vehicle and pulled the BMW back to level ground, Angela very kindly videoing the incident rather than watching for the lions! The feel good factor swiftly evaporated back at the Skukusa camp main gate as we arrived 2 minutes after the 5.30pm gate closure. We were then chastised for being late, and made to sign a form, which was effectively a final warning. Our Israeli friends had not mentioned our good deed to the gatekeeper in their haste to get back in to the camp.
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