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KRUGER!
Kruger is absolutely amazing! First I have to fill you in on our activities before we got to Kruger... Friday night Melissa, Tao and I went to Nelspruit again to go out with some guys Tao knows from Swaziland - they're all really nice, hilarious and just want to get drunk, my kinda guys!! So yea Friday night we got rather drunk then Saturday morning went in search of a monster breakfast - eggs benedict what a treat! Gotta love the poached egg Mands! Anyway then we drove to a place called Koomatipoort which is right on the border of Mozambique and where the guys were playing rugby. Such fun to watch them play rugby even if we didn't know what was going on and we got all excited and cheered when the other team got a penalty - oops! The guys won anyway go it was all good. Then they did this thing they called fines, I don't know if its the rugby norm or not but it involves drinking stupid amounts of beer depending on which thing you did wrong during the match, boys eh?!?
Anyway eventually made it to Kruger at about 6pm but it was dark by then so we went straight to the camp where we were staying, Malelane. Had a braai (bbq, I think I already told you that) and a few beers and then went to bed in the tents that of course the guys put up! Up at 6 Sunday morning and straight out for a game drive... we didn't actually see much this day, well we saw elephants, giraffes, rhino and loads of impala's actually but as I'm writing this now I've seen much more and after a few days we started to get a bit complacent about seeing a giraffe or elephant. Anyway we had a really funny day as we drove roudn for hours in hunt of animals and played drinking games and went to the other camp, Berg en Dal. This is where the All Out (our organisation) people were staying. We were joined the All Out group on Monday when the guys left. Had another braai which involved an amazing stew, definitely the best I've ever tasted. Few tequilas, sorry lemonades, and then bed.
Got woken up at 6am on Monday morning when the guy from All Out was battering on our tent... Very very funny as we tried to scramble around still drunk in all 4 tents and 2 cars looking for our stuff which we'd just thrown anywhere! Managed to find it all I think... joined the other group (there was 10 of us in total - some fellow english too!) who had been waiting for us oops again and then off for our next day of driving. Again another day of seeing elephants, impalas, rhino, buffalo, giraffe and then as we were all basically falling asleep in the car at about 4pm, so after about 9 hours of driving around playing hide and seek with the animals, one of the girls spotted a leopard right next to the road - we all woke up pretty quickly! It was SO amazing and so well camouflaged. Had dinner at our camp, chcken curry cooked on a camp stove is surprisingly good!
We spent all day Tuesday out looking for animals again, especially the lions which seem to be the hardest out of all the animals to find. In the game of Kruger hide and seek that I made up in my own mind, whilst driving around for hours on end staring into the wilderness you get a lot of time to do these things as well as have the occasional nap, the lion is definitely the best player! Impala is THE worst - they are absolutely everywhere! In the middle is elephant and rhino with giraffe being above this, their long necks just give the game away!
Wednesday everyone else in our group except us three girls went on the early morning game walk which meant they had to leave the campsite at 5.45! No thanks... It was fine though as they didn't see elephants or anything we hadn't already seen, phew! We went for an afternoon drive again looking for lions but no luck. Had a great braai for dinner with this sausage that is in a massive circle and mashed potato - my favourite. After this we went for a night game drive with the rangers from the park, the pressure was definitely on this time as we hadn't seen lions yet and time was running out... We had heard lions roaring pretty much every night from our camp ste but I was starting to think that someone was outside our camp playing one of those sounds of nature cds! The night drive left at 6pm and we were going to be back at 9pm. Within about the first 5 minutes we saw a civet which is supposed to be very rare so the guide got all excited. Its a wild cat but definitely not a lion! Carried on driving and then saw two wild dogs which we did all get really excited about as they are really rare plus they were on the road right next to us. Saw about 4 owls, an elephant up really close and another leopard which was really great but then didn't see anything for about an hour so we all prety much nodded off and had given up hope of seeing Simba and Co. Then as we were driving back to our camp and it was 8.50 by this time we saw a lion in the road and then noticed that there were 8 in total, 1 on the road and 7 chilling in the grasss next to the road including a cub - SO cute! We did the typical girlie 'ahhhh' when we saw it, especially when it lifted its head and looked at us. The main lioness that was really close to us was about 3/4 feet away and so beautiful. We all had big cheshire cat grins on our faces for the rest of the night!
Thursday we got up, having heard the lions roar all through the night, had high hopes for the early morning drive before we left... Nothing except giraffe, rhino and elephants, I know how complacent we had became! It was just that seeing the lions and leopards was SO amazing and took so much effort that the others were amazing but didn't really match it!
Oh my god, I've just remembered the funniest thing that happened on Wednesday... We had been driving for about 2 hours and one of teh girls really needed the loo. Well for obvious reasosn ou can't just get out of your car anywhere so we drove for about another hour to try and find a toilet, by which point about 5 of us needed the loo, but couldn't. So we found a place where people go to watch birds from and thought we'd go to the loo there - no toilet! Argh! We decided that we'd just go for it bush style and then realised there was an elephant fairly close by... We couldn't hold it so had to go anyway. Thing is we had to get far enough in to the bush so that we were far enough away from the car and the dirt tracks but also not too far away that we wouldn't b able to get back to the car asap! Anyway mid wee all the people who were in the car started shouting 'come on girls hurry up, hurry up' we were trying not to pee too fast so we didn't get it all over our feet but also trying to stop which as I'm sure you all know is easier said than done! Anyway by the time we managed to scramble back to the car the elephant was about 10 feet away! Very funny now and it actually was at the time too, which didn't help with the needing a wee situation! Anyway we all survived! I'm really sorry for having to share that much in depth information with you all but I had to, it was like something from a comedy sketch, just count your lucky stars there wasn't a film crew!
Anyway we returned yesterday afternoon and it was really strange but nice to come back actually, the group of peopel we were with were great and the place was great but I am definitely done with sharing a tent for 2 between 3 and living out of a rucksack! But I guess if it came to it again I could, and definitely would, sacrifice my space and wardrobe for some time with Simba any day, Kruger is absolutey amazing!
Got back yesterday and just chilled in the arvo, had a lovely braai in the eve, we've had a guy move in to our house temporarily so he made sure the girls didn't get themselves alight with the barby! Today as usual school was cancelled as the teachers are still on strike! I went to Tao's creche again and then the mult purpose centre which was really nice and will probably be the last time I go to both as we've been told that Melissa and I will probably be moving to Swaziland earlier than planned because of this strike which doesn't look lik finishing anytime soon. We may even go as early as Monday but we're not sure yet, this means my next entry may be from Swaziland! Hopefully accompanied by some pics...! I'm out, much love until next time! xx
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