Sunday 19 June

We had great excitement when asleep in our tents last night.  I heard something very large moving about, and being curious, took a quick peak outside.  An enormous hippopotamus was browsing for food nearby our tent, and then moved to the side of it.  A very powerful spotlight came on suddenly, and shone on the hippos face, at which it moved away, obviously disliking the light.  The powerful beam stayed in place, however, and the hippo shifted further away again.  Before long, the hippo had moved away from the tents and on out of the facilities.  All good news, because I was longing to wee and did not fancy having to ask him to move out of the way.

I asked the owner of the lodge this morning if such visits by wild animals often happen.  He says it is extremely common, and the reason he has staff on duty 24/7/365.  He told us last week an enormous bull elephant appeared in the grounds, and decided he would browse for food around the bushes by the site’s bar/living room.  I asked how he got rid of it, and he assured me you don’t get rid of an elephant.  Elephants do whatever they want, and you just wait for them to decide to Go Elsewhere.  In the end, this elephant visited with the swimming pool - a shallow one with gently sloping sides, and ended up sleeping for the night on the lawn beside the main entrance to the lodge facilities.  I asked what they did the next morning, and the owner said nothing.  When he was bored, the elephant moved on.  When I asked if they tried shining a light on him, as they did with the hippo, and he explained that elephants don’t like torch light, and if you shine it at them, they charge.  We all then agreed it was best for the beast to head off in his own sweet time.  Apparently the visitors were delighted by the close proximity of the elephant, and were very careful to give it a very wide berth and not antagonize it in any way.  How fun.  Although I must say I have always found cat poop on the lawn an outrage and an offense, and got pretty mad about it.  Pales into insignificance though when you consider how much tonnage of poop a large bull elephant can drop on your lawn in 24 hours.

We had 2 safaris today, and below are some photos of animals sighted.

Yanni and Caroline, our friend from the Sanctuary.  Standing on the bank not far from several families of elephants

I love this tree, you can see lots of nests the birds built during the last season

The zebra were gorgeous

We had families of elephants, they were just gorgeous

Vervet Monkies

Inquisitive giraffe 

Two resting lions

One of many crocodiles

I love the sausage trees, so called because the fruit look like hanging sausages.