Safari diary, August 4th, 2008

Tamboti Tented Camp, Kruger National Park.

Rain last night. Unusal for this time of year. Could smell it coming on the wind before I turned in.

3.00am: Woken by male lion roaring, approximately four metres outside safari tent. Fortunately there was electric fence between tent and lion. Unfortunately there was also typical South African power outage (formerly known as blackout) last night.

3.01am: Snuggled closer to Mrs Blog and pulled covers up to nose in knowledge that this would protect us should a hooked, yellowed claw appear through the canvas.

3.02am: Much discussion about location of lion, direction of movement, ability of big cats to jump over fences.

3.04am: Safe under blankets, I am oddly comforted by the series of grunts and mournful moans of the lion. We haven't seen one since arriving in Kruger last Thursday, so it's nice to know they're out there... somewhere.

6.05am: Still raining. Lion still calling. Despatch Mrs Blog outside to veranda to look for lion, armed with binoculars and penlight torch.

6.07am: Mrs Blog returns, intact. Lions believed to have moved off.

7.00am: Finally extract self from under blankets, have brief conversation with occupant of next safari tent. "Did you see him?" I ask.

"Ja, with the spotlight when it was still dark," he replies. "Right over there, just outside the fence near your tent. Awesome."

Indeed.

Comments

Anonymous said…
And what opinion, one may wonder, did the lion form of you?
Anonymous said…
mr blog..a bit stringy
mrs blog..well hello breakfast
ali g said…
Bit of the old Wimoweh here too the other night. Awoke at 3.30 to sounds of roaring jungle cats and crashing sounds as they brought down some unfortunate prey so switched on the light to have a look and found that Wookie had brought me a present of the lower half of a mouse with its stringy entrails hanging out and oozing into the white bedroom carpet next to the bed. Sat there looking very pleased with himself so told him he was a good boy and woke mother blog and told her to clean up the mess please
Flea said…
Sounds scary but warm!
redcap said…
Sigh. I spent the day writing a profile of the local police commissioner, being cold, putting out an electronic paper, proof-reading and being cold. Oh, and being cold. Sigh. I want to run away to Africa :(
noddy said…
Do you sell more books when you're dead?????
If so who gets the royalties????? Remember,I've always been there for you!!!!!!!!
ali g said…
Need more tales from the land of the lion to warm us up please!
It's so frickin cold down here I swear someones turned off the global warming.
we're coming back to Efrika next year sometime. Got the Visa frequent flyers card today so that's the start of the big save up program for the trip.
Have bought Bubu a penlight and pair of binocs to help with the early morning lion spotting when we get there, but you'll probably have to give her a cup of tea in bed first before she'll venture out.
Anonymous said…
wondering if you guys still played root shoot or marry? If so - root or shoot is good for a few minutes downtime.
Anonymous said…
okay so it should have been a link to here:

root or shoot

hopefully that one works.