Olifants

So the Donkey Damage is fully repaired; the bakkie is immaculate. Perfect. Better than the latest all-electric Papal Ferrari. Now insurance wants a full 100-point check. Oh boy and liewe bliksem. The technicians find a dozen things wrong due to Old Age, not donkey-related. Unfair to put an 18yr-old Ford through such stress!

They found things equivalent to our hip n knee replacements n stuff. Bushes, rubber dust seals, etc. Reminded me of the Miss Universal Joints pageant. So we soldier on, still repairing the Truck with a Tent 77days after The Curious Incident With The Donkey in Broad Daylight.

Time to escape again. This time Olifants camp in central Kruger park. Ten km in from Phalaborwa gate this elegant lady calmly walked past us. She was relaxed but alert to anything in the long grass that she might catch, shred and eat.

Jess chose to lie in this am. I stopped to listen to a River Frog and enjoy my coffee hot and heard lions roaring some distance away off the Balule road. A scrub robin and a bush-shrike were entertaining me when this fella walked out of the bush and lay down right in front of me.

And then I saw a kill! A malachite kingfisher swooped low upriver, caught a tiny little silver fish and swallowed it whole. It was brutal.

A last morning drive yielded lovely bird sightings n sounds, but not one single mammal! Not a squirrel, not an impala! I’m glad Jess chose to lie in. Then breakfast on the deck and the drive home. Lots of eles, a steenbok, hyena mom with three little pups, giraffe, buffalo, and a female Red-crested Korhaan.

~~oo0oo~~

bakkie – pickup, ute

liewe bliksem – gosh