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Published: January 25th 2011
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14 January 2011 – Crocodile Bridge
Setup camp at Crocodile Bridge right on the fence, one of our favourite camps, small and usually quiet and good game viewing in the area.
The first night we noticed a few scorpions running around the ground, reminded us of the last time we camped here in 2008.
Woke up early for a game drive to hear the pitter patter, not of tiny feet but of big raindrops. Now there's nothing worse than packing up a wet tent so we made an executive decision to stay another day in Kruger before heading south into Swazliand which had been our plan for today. As you don't see much game in the rain we rolled over happy to have another hour or so of sleep. On waking a bit later it had stopped raining so as we had no excuse to stay in bed we got up and went for a drive.
After an uneventful morning we came across a car that was waving us to slow down, he told us there were 3 lionesses by the side of the road. One was on one side and 2 on the other, just lying
Scorpion
Feet Up! there, chilling. Now a lion on the hunt is probably very exciting, I dont know as we've never seen it, and lion cubs playing can be very entertaining, but a lion just chilling is pretty boring, they just don't do much. So we decided to move on.
As we stopped another car to say that there were 3lionesses in front of him, he got in first and told us that there were 2 lionesses in front of us.
We only saw the one, she was sitting at the side of the road, but seemed a bit more active than normal. She crossed in front of us to the other side of the road and called, I think the lion equivalent of a text asking if they want to hunt, there was no reply, maybe there was no signal.
She moved back and started to stalk the zebras. Head down, walking slowly low to the ground, she would move a few feet and then stop. Eventually she stopped and laid down, it seemed her mates weren't interested in hunting, it was after all pretty hot by this time.
The zebra were all aware of her, they had stopped eating and moving and were just staring in her direction. It was a stand off for a while. After about an hour we decided to head back to camp which was only half a km away, pack a quick lunch and drinks and come back to the lion. Typically, the minute we left she moved off and the zebra no longer showed any sign of being concered.
Heading back to camp at about 2pm we decided to pack up the tent while it was still dry in case we got rain in the night again. The temperature now measured 54 degrees in the sun where our tent was pitched so we had to take frequent breaks to stand in the shade and cool off, and Andy found it necessary to drink several beers to keep hydrated. Something about mad dogs and Englishmen comes to mind, and these Englishmen (or should that now be Scotsmen) were now working in a 70 degree diference in temperature having left Scotland when it was minus 16 degrees.
As we took the tent down and folded it up it became apparent what had kept us awake the previous night. Not some odd cell phone ring but 6 frogs who had been sheltering under our groundsheet. Sadly one of them had expired, presumably the one under Andy's side of the mattress, but the other 5 were fit and well and quite upset we were removing their nice new house.
Having now packed the tent away we were committed to sleeping in the cab as we did for 3 weeks on our last trip away. Only problem was that this night (according to the locals the next day) was one of the hottest they had experienced, I think Andy spent most of the night standing outside the truck which was just slightly cooler than sleeping in it. I don't think the tent would have been any better.
Next morning after an uneventful game drive we headed to the Swaziland border. What a pity that the officials on the South African side are so miserable when the officials on the Swaziland side are so pleasant, it's something we have noted before so no surprise there.
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