Day 10: Finally, I have guests!

For Thursday, I finally had guests. Two of the employees from Rissington came with me in to Kruger; Cynthia, who had only worked there for a couple of months and still insisted on referring to me as "Sir" at the outset, and Sophie, who I had talked a bit with last year and invited to come along on the last day, but sadly she had to work.

None of them had been to Kruger but both left as converts. It started with a metaphorical bang. After just a few minutes on the Voortrekker, we saw a big, male lion in the grass. He crossed the road a couple of times and made some bone-chilling roars, perhaps searching for a mate.

Video of the lion.


Then we saw, in no particular order, buffalo, crocodile, elephant (several herds), giraffe, hippo, kudu, rhino, wildebeest, zebra and vervet monkey. The girls saw four of the big five, and although we hadn't seen a leopard, much less a cheetah or a hyena, they were still very, very happy.

Sophie and Cynthia at Crocodile Bridge, from which we saw lots of crocs and hippos.


Selfie with mah crew.


Hippo snoring at Crocodile Bridge.


Hippo awake at Crocodile Bridge. This one looked like a baby.


Monkeys. Ever the cute little rascals.


We counted 14 giraffes down in the dry riverbed. They were eager to cross the road, but there were too many cars up there fighting for a better angle.


Goofy McGoof seemed to be everywhere that day.


Here I had a partial selfie with some of them.


I didn't shoot many pics or videos that day, but I still had an absolute blast. It's nice to hear other voices than the ones in your head (and nice to have other topics than the constant screaming for blood) and let me tell you, these were funny ladies. Cynthia soon stopped with her "Sir" nonsense and we got into it with some really good banter, especially when she decided to have kudu pie for lunch which also led to guffaws from Sophie.

Video of us at lunch at Afsaal. Not sure why most of the footage seems to be of the people around us, though.


We left the park with only a few minutes to go before dark and I dined on steak and pepper sauce again before retiring to a good night's sleep.