The Cow has had a fear of elephants since 2007 when we got stuck amongst, and surrounded, by a very excited breeding herd and she tried to hide in the footwell below the passenger seat. The Imfolozi ellies can also be faulty and we have had numerous full charge events over the years where I’m reversing foot flat to escape getting flattened, which unfortunately hasn’t helped the Cow’s fear of ellies.
“REVERSE!”
“Relax, I’m going to give him space”
I slowly reversed back around the corner and down towards Kumana Dam, but the ellie kept on coming and he was starting to show signs that he wasn’t pleased with our presence, so I suggested that we duck down the open right dirt loop on the road to the baobab thereby allowing the ellie a free path to continue past on the tar and this seemed to relax the Cow.
I ducked down the dirt loop and parked to watch the ellie walk past.
About 15 seconds later the ellie arrived at the H1-3/baobab road intersection and suddenly paused, looked at us, and then turned to come down the dirt straight towards us. Time slowed down for me at this moment as I knew immediately that we were in the kak as this guy wasn’t playing games, but the Cow instantly lost her marbles which took me out of my slow-motion live movie.
“#$*#$*#* …….&##$*#......... He’s coming after us! GO! GO!”
“Go where? It’s a dead end!”
Then the Cow started jabbering all kinds of things off, including calling my name a few times, so I lost it.
“HEY SHUT UP, I’m trying to focus on the situation!”
The Cow then literally covered her eyes with her hands and stated “I’m not watching! I’m not watching!” and sat there with her eyes covered playing ostrich.
The dead-end loop has a patch of grass and bushes in the middle of the loop, so I drove around the loop and stopped with the bushes between us and the ellie in an attempt to hide. This was a giant bull who could have easily have charged straight through the bushes, etc, but I obviously didn’t say that at the time.
The ellie continued to come and he accelerated, so my hiding attempt hadn’t been successful, but fortunately he stuck to the road, so as he entered the loop behind us, I roared out the front of the loop behind him before he could react.
I think we had provided some entertainment for those who were stuck behind the ellie on the tar as they had stopped on the tar to watch our situation, but for me it was an awesome sighting and an adrenalin rush, so I burst out laughing as did Albert, however the Cow was less impressed, but at least her hands had come down from her eyes and I escaped the expected greasing for my outburst.
The rest of the drive to Satara didn’t produce much except for an ugly marabou relaxing just outside camp and the Cow loves them for some reason, so we stopped for pics.
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It was a little early to book in, so we checked out the sighting board and made a few mental notes, cruised to the Cattle Baron butchery to see if there was anything worthwhile that wasn’t going to break the bank, stocked up on some items from the shop and then booked in.
At around 3:30pm we loaded up for the afternoon drive and threw around some route ideas. The Cow wanted to do the S100, but I insisted on going to Nsemani Dam because the sighting board had plenty “lion magnets” placed around the dam, but Albert & the Cow looked confused at my statement, however I ignored them and continued towards the H7.
A few km down the H7 on route to the dam we came across a herd of ellies and then a herd of buffalo so the Cow chirped.
“As per the sighting board”
This confused me “What do you mean? They weren’t on the sighting board.”
“Yes, they were”
“No lions were indicated”
“No, there were no lions indicated anywhere on the board”
Albert backed up the Cow’s statement, so I was now very confused, but then agreed to do the S100 rather. I checked on my confusion later and it turns out that the lion magnet is green at Tshokwane, but red at Satara, the leopard magnet is blue at Tshokwane, but black at Satara, etc, so I will check the legend in future as Sanparks can’t standardize on colours. (There are even different colours within the same camp – i.e. The reception sighting board at Skukuza versus the sighting board outside the shop).
The S100 produced all the normal clan, but I didn’t get excited until around 5km from the end of the S100 as we found a leopard in a tree about 10m off the road. The tree was on the northern side of the road, so the sun, which was low in the sky due to the time, was directly behind the leopard and the leopard was amongst the foliage, so it was a mission to get a clear view. We eventually had to park 10m up the road and look back at the tree to get a semi view and to avoid looking directly into the sun.
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We then decided to wait it out with the hope that the leopard would wake up and move, or hopefully come down the tree, but after 20 minutes our attention span was fading, so we duffed the pics when the leopard moved, however she moved further up the branch and collapsed in a worse position
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We waited another 20 minutes, but the Garmin was indicating that we were running out of time, so we called it and headed back to Satara.
After our braai we decided to take a walk to the fence line behind the BD2N’s, where we were staying, with the hope of finding some of the Satara night locals. It’s a fairly short section of fence line that runs from the day visitor’s area up to the perimeter fence of Stanley guest house and there are also some benches to park off on.
We found a hyena cruising past 1st, as per the norm, and then around 10 minutes later a jackal charging around that seemed to be trying to find a way into camp.
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and with the rain everything gets more complicated and less pleasant without the sun
It cannot have been very enjoyable, but you make it sound not too bad. Luckily you got the car fixed. I hope that it will last until you get home again
I don't mind cold overcast conditions in KNP as we have had some of our best sightings in those conditions, but not if the wind is howling 
It will be interesting to discover what Albert will choose 
