Third week in Campfire

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Hello again,
Excitng times for me again in South Africa. Last week I sent photos of the Kruger National Park, but couldn't fit on the pictures from the panorama trail. I'm putting on a couple, but not too many or I won't be able to place all the shots i want to show you from everything else.
Where to start? Saturday. Went for a late night game drive and saw two lionesses with their cubs in the dark. Watched them for a while, but it is quite scary, because while we were watching one lioness with the spotlight, the other is in the dark somewhere. I took my small torch with me and kept having quick looks behind me to make sure nothing was sneaking up on us.
Sunday. A nice quiet boat trip on the reservoir in the hills above Hoedspruit. almost like Longdendale except for the crocs and hippos.
Monday. Went to the mountains for the hike. We were following the course of the river, so I was able to swim under waterfalls, crawl through potholes by the side of thirty foot waterfalls, to get to the bottom and walking through forests with the baboons barking a warning as we came near. Two of our company dived from a fifteen foot cliff into one of the pools, but I looked over the edge and decided against it. I took some snaps instead. On the way back in to campfire, about four hundred metrse from our gate, we saw a cheetah walking through the bush.
Tuesday. Lots of excitement. In the afternoon we got a report of two big male lions nearby, so we drove off to look for them. We got delayed by a huge herd of buffalo slowly crossing the track in front of us. They don't hurry, they just fill the road up and stop for a munch of the bushes or a scratch on a termite mound. Then we got a call that there was a small group of tuskers nearby, so we set off to look for them. We didn't see them and returned to Campfire to find that they had beaten us to it and had pushed a tree down by therr smaller gate and wer munching it to bits. we watched them for another half hour, in the dark, before going off to chase more lions, unfortunately without success.
Wednesday. The elephant had returned to carry on eating the tree that he had knocked down, so we went to look at them, unfotunately we were a bit too quick when we approached the gat and we scared them off. We decide that until we could get a chainsaw to chop the tree up to move it from the gate, we would hack off the spiney branches with a hatchet so that the chainsaw gang would be able to access the main trunk and thicker branches. Four hours and a huge blister on my hand later, we had succeeded and the branches were piled by the side of the track. I had also lost several pints of blood to the thorns. After cutting the branches, the tree was still blocking the gate so we got on the backie to drive through the bush to the main gate. Of course, I didn't have time to get my camera, so was unable to photograph the Impala bucks having a fight, or the giraffes that we walked with, then we saw the same tusker pushing down another tree. We switched off the engine and watched him for twenty minutes until he got fed up with us being less than ten yards away and he spread his ears and mock charged us. Even though we were sure it was a mock charge, it was still a bit nerve wracking as the engine coughed back to life and we all drove away laughing with happiness and relief.
Thursday. Helped to dig holes and concrete in fence posts on a hyena breeding project. Apparantly the hyenas have not been able to re establish themselves, as twenty years ago this area was farmland and hyenas were shot. On the way back we stopped off at a neighbouring house to look at the body of a giraffe killed by the two big male lions. It was rather smelly. When we got back, there were four elephants, including the big guy who had knocked it down feasting on the tree by the small gate, or rather on the branches that we had cut off for them. These are the pix that you can see.
Friday. Did erosion control work in the morning, then had a lecture on astronomy and navigation by the stars. In the afternoon we went for a walk to the waterhole hide. After waiting, patiently for half an hour we were rewarded by a herd of fifty buffalo coming down to drink and wallow in the mud. After a while, they became aware that we were watching them and wandered off elsewhere. we waited another ten minutes and two rhino came cautiously to the waterhole and started to drink and wallow. After ten minutes or so , the two men who work at campfire came wandering up without seeing the rhino. In spite of our increasingly desperate warnings they thought we were just waving to them and just carried on walking and chatting. Gardeners and Rhino spotted each other at exactly the same moment and both took off at high speed in opposite directions. They started out thirty metres apart, but ten seconds later they were a quarter of a mile apart.
Today, did some more work at the hyena project. Just myself and Angelica, plus Danny and Victor, the two heroes of the rhino encounter and one chap who works for the property concerned. The owner, Steve tried to take pity on me and suggested that I let the Africans dig and I supervise. Of course we both knwe that they didn't need me to tell them what to do, so I decided to dig as much as I could. Me and Angelica, did four hours of hard graft in the hot sun before giving up. We went back to campfire at one o'clock, while Danny and Victor carried on until three. After three days of quite hard graft I'm now aching and stiff, but with a sense of accomplishment that I have helped in something worthwhile. After dinner I watched United beat Spurs 5-2.
It has been a busy old week, and I have too many pics, but I hope you like the ones I have selected. Stand by for the next thrilling instalment.

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