- 34.jpg (122.22 KiB) Viewed 296 times
On the short trip back to camp our wish for a bull elephant came true and this guy, like many Imfolozi ellies, really didn’t want us around. He stopped feeding and headed straight for us, so I got ahead of him as I didn’t want to get chased in reverse, then I slowed and chirped.
“Let’s give Sasquatch a close-up view!”
The Cow isn’t a fan of stroppy ellies, so she started giving me the panicked hairy eye ball. The bull seemed to mellow out once on the road, however he continued towards us and I just kept on moving ahead of him, which gave Hawkeyes and Sasquatch a good view from the back of my bakkie.
The Cow had turned in her seat and was snapping pics out the passenger window, but got the back of the bakkie in all the pics.
- 35.jpg (131.98 KiB) Viewed 296 times
When we arrived back at Gqoyeni someone had already started the braai and pit fires which initially gave me a mild pelican because building and starting a fire in the bush is part of my entertainment ritual, but we then met the culprit, it was the kitchen assistant that the manager/guide had told us about and it seems that it’s part of his service/job description. He’s on duty to cook/braai for you until 7pm, but you have to tell him what you want, when you want it and supply the food. I will just call him “N”, which is the first letter of his name and he’s super cool. He certainly has excellent cooking skills and I have since found out that he makes a mean potjie also. We aren’t used to this type of thing, so I told him that he could have the evening off, but he then offered to at least make a salad so we agreed. I can confirm that his salad is excellent and even now at home when Hawkeyes or the Cow make a salad they ask “a “N” salad or normal salad”.
“N” then asked what groceries we had brought with for breakfast and what time we wanted it served. This again made us a little uncomfortable, but after a negotiation agreed on 9:30am and the Cow showed “N” our full English breakfast stock.
We went to all park off around the fire pit, which I assume was a little strange for some since there’s no fences and as this was Sasquatch’s first time in a game reserve, I had to throw in some “predator coming through camp war stories” to set the vibe, but it didn’t seem to rattle him.
A few minutes later the manager/guide came to check on us around the fire pit to see if we wanted to do a morning bush walk, but we wanted to do a morning drive instead and would look at doing a walk later in the day. I then asked him about predator encounters in camp and some of his stories caused a few big eyes and they were way better than my war stories.
Just before we threw the meat on the braai, the manager and “N” ducked back to their units and we relaxed on the veranda after chow for about an hour, but there was very little night time action except for the odd hyena calling.
- 36.jpg (65.19 KiB) Viewed 296 times
The manager was going to kill the generator at 9:30pm, so at around 9pm we all ducked to our respective units to shower before the power went out.
The units are “open” between the edge of the thatch and the walls with chicken mesh between, so similar to the units at Balule in Kruger, but more fancy with an attached bathroom, however due to this chicken mesh, insects, moths, geckos, etc pull in bigtime and the Cow and I had some size invaders, so we had a good laugh about what must be happening in the other units, especially Albert’s as she has a major dislike for geckos.
To be continued
a new TT... and from a place that I don't know 
